


Crimson Eyes

by persimonne



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: A/B/O Elements, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Fingering, Anal Knotting, Anal Oviposition, Anal Sex, Awesome Leia Organa, Boss/Employee Relationship, Dick Fingering, Enthusiastic Consent, Exophilia, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, First Time, Knotting, Loss of Virginity, Mating Bites, Mention of IUD, Mention of Vasectomy, Mothlo, Mystery, No Breeding Kink, No Pregnancy, Oviposition, Past Grooming, Past Kidnapping, Past Murder, Past Torture, Past Vivisection, Pheromones, Praise Kink, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rey & Rose Tico Friendship, Scared And Horny, Size Difference, Surgical stitches, Teratophilia, That Excalated Quickly, The Best Position is Oviposition, Virgin Kylo Ren, Visions in dreams, Yes Rey Fucks Mothlo's Ovipositor With Her Fingers, Youtuber Kylo Ren, bluebeard au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:20:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 41,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25034587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persimonne/pseuds/persimonne
Summary: Youtuber Kylo Ren needs help: he’s trapped home with thousands of moths since the Natural History Museum closed. Rey, homeless and unemployed, answers his call, beginning her new life in his country house as his personal assistant. But after a mysterious key catches her attention, she discovers that Kylo Ren is hiding a huge secret: he’s not what he seems.Bluebeard meets Mothman.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 725
Kudos: 574
Collections: F@$k Cancer in the Ass (For a Good Cause)





	1. The Moth Guy

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Macrolepidoptera](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23588158) by [ceciliasheplin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceciliasheplin/pseuds/ceciliasheplin). 
  * Inspired by [Phototaxis](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24063736) by [thewayofthetrashcompactor (BriarLily)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BriarLily/pseuds/thewayofthetrashcompactor). 



> This is my love letter to Mothlo. 
> 
> I need to thank everyone who encouraged me to write during these difficult months, and in particular MissCoppelia, one of my most trusted beta readers, who helped me immensely. I wouldn't publish this if not for her. She's a hero.
> 
>   
> My dear readers: please, mind the tags before beginning the story: Extremely Dubcon and Noncon Elements are tagged for a specific reason, and that would be the first sexual encounter between a human woman (Rey) and a nonverbal, giant moth (Kylo Ren) relying on pheromones to communicate. After that first, confused time, the sex will be always fully consensual.
> 
> Russian translation by Smalta available [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27723107/chapters/67853960).

Rey closed her laptop, sighing. She was tired. After receiving the umpteenth rejection from a potential employer, she just wanted to curl up in a ball of despair and cry herself to sleep. She tried to, rolling on the sofa-bed that Rose, Jannah, and Kaydel had generously offered her in exchange for housekeeping after Plutt, her landlord, had evicted her right after she’d lost her job as waitress at Mos Eisley’s Cantina. But, even if tears came easily, sleep didn’t, and she kept tossing and turning on the squeaky sofa, her ears catching every noise coming from the house and from the street below.

Being without a job and an apartment at the same time was taking a toll on Rey’s mental health, even if her friends had insisted on helping her. To be honest, she was used to relying on herself alone. Rey felt like she was intruding on their lives, disrupting their routines with her goofy form slumped on their sofa, waiting for a job that wouldn’t arrive, while her meager belongings were stacked in a couple of cardboard boxes on the already small balcony of their kitchenette. She’d seen worse during her life, but she’d also hoped she could finally have a normal life, for once. There was no rest for someone who only knew struggles their whole life, apparently.

Rey exhaled. She could hear laughter coming from Rose’s room, so she finally gave up, heading to the bathroom to wash her face, and joined her friends. All the three girls were crammed on Rose’s queen-size bed, watching some videos on Youtube, and seemingly tipsy, judging by the half-empty beer bottles lying on the nightstands.

“Rey!” Kaydel greeted her. “Sit with us! We’re watching the ASMR Moth Guy on Youtube.”

“The what?” Rey asked, baffled.

“The Moth Guy, Kylo Ren. He doesn’t actually make ASMR videos, but his voice is kinda hypnotic?” Rose answered, as Rey sat down with the others.

“His voice is downright sexy,” Jannah specified. “And his hands are fucking huge, I mean, they’re massive, but he’s so delicate as he handles the moths?”

Rey blinked. “Are we talking about real moths? As in chubby, hairy butterflies?”

“Unfortunately,” Kaydel grimaced. “Rose, put the one with the giant moths on so Rey can see for herself how big his hands are.”

Rose clicked on a video in the recommended section, and finally Rey understood why her friends were so engrossed with this Moth Guy. He had a deep, low voice–definitely a baritone–and beautiful hands. Rey couldn’t actually visualize their size since she had no idea how big those moths were, even if the title of the clip was “Biggest Moths on Earth–how to breed them at home”. But they were unusually beautiful, with feathery antennae and meaty, velvety wings, and for the first time in her life, she felt the desire to touch one of them and take it in her hands. 

“How big is that one?” she asked, nodding at Rose’s laptop.

The moth currently handled by the Moth Guy was incredible, sporting reddish-brown wings with a particular appendage imitating a snake’s head. It perched itself on Kylo Ren’s fingers, slowly flapping its wings like it was trying to show them to the camera. It was amazing how it just chilled there, without any intention of flying away, as Kylo Ren moved his fingers, looking for the best angles to observe the creature.

“The Atlas moth? We’ve checked on Wikipedia earlier, it said 24 centimeters, that’s more than 9 inches,” Rose answered.

“Fuck,” Rey exclaimed. “His hands are as big as pans! I had no idea moths could be so huge.”

“Neither did we, I think,” Jannah said. “But we’re almost experts now.”

“I still find them yucky, but I’d do anything to hear his voice,” Kaydel added.

“I–I like them,” Rey admitted. “They’re fascinating. Anyway, how did you find his videos? They’re weirdly specific.”

“Rose found him,” Kaydel explained. “He became popular on Twitter because he fought with the Mayor about the closing of the Natural History Museum last month, and people began following him on Youtube and thirsting over his voice. He went from… something like 95 followers to more than 10k in three weeks.”

“Does he show his face? Or is it only hands and bugs?”

“I’m not sure if there are videos showing his face,” Rose answered. “I subscribed to his channel last week but I haven’t found any, so far.”

“Let’s see the video where he explains mating again? That’s hilarious,” Jannah asked.

Rose clicked on said video, and Rey made herself comfortable–it looked like she had a long night ahead of her. She watched, fascinated, as Kylo Ren took two stunning grey moths from a cage, and began explaining how to discern male from female. At one point, he said “Don’t forget that moths are just like drunk, horny teenagers, and they’ll behave accordingly!” and her friends began to howl and laugh, forcing Rose to rewind the video twice to listen to the clip again. 

“That was actually interesting!” Rey protested, while Kaydel playfully pushed her against the headboard.

They put on another video where Kylo Ren showed what kind of local plants were good for tropical moths, but Rose soon received a notification from Youtube, the message sliding onto the upper part of the monitor.

_ Kylo Ren uploaded: HELP! The museum closed, I need help – trapped with too many moths. _

“Oooh let’s see,” Rose exclaimed, clicking on the notification straight away. 

The video began with a wall of moths. A literal wall of moths, just chilling there and flapping their wings lazily. But soon, a head with a dark, luscious mop of hair emerged from the bottom part of the frame, and the girls began howling again. Kylo Ren had finally shown himself, in all his nerdy glory.

“Fuck!” Jannah shouted. “He’s not ugly! I knew it!”

Kaydel squealed next to her. “His mouth is hot! Those lips are definitely kissable!”

“His eyes are so intense!” Rose added. “I knew that someone with that voice couldn’t be ugly at all.”

Kylo Ren had one of the most unusual faces Rey had seen ever, the kind of face that could actually make her turn her head on the street to take another look. It seemed that his nose and his chin had been broken at some point, healing crooked, but she found that somehow endearing, despite the evident asymmetry of the ensemble. Rose was right, his eyes were intense, their almost golden colour truly impressive. And Kaydel was right as well, his mouth was luscious and plump, and she found herself licking her own lips, as if she could kiss him through the monitor.

Kylo Ren greeted his subscribers simply lifting one of his paws in front of the camera, offering his public the shyest smile ever. His teeth were crooked too. He was fucking adorable.

“Hi,” he said, finally. “A–As many of you already know from Twitter, our local museum has lost his public funding and it can’t afford to remain open until a private donor steps in to help. While I’ll only lose about fifty percent of my income, at least ten people will lose their job permanently, and the Butterfly Garden will close as well, leaving me with them.” His hand pointed at the wall behind him. “We have opened a Gofundme page for the museum, so, if you want, you can help with donations, and uhm,” he said, carding his fingers through his hair. “I may need help with all these moths. I’m stuck with them until October at least, and I could use a hand to take care of them. Paying what I can, but you won’t need to worry about eating and sleeping, I’m providing for everything. I live alone, my house is big, with good wi-fi and I won’t bother you in the evenings. Think about it and send me an email.”

When the video finished, Rey had three pairs of eyes fixed on her.

“What,” she asked feebly. “Is there something on my face?”

“This hot Moth Guy is offering you a job, Rey. Your name is already written in the credits of his next video,” Rose said.

“And you could even live with him for free until October,” Jannah added.

Kaydel patted her shoulder. “I think this is a good opportunity, you’re not even squicked by bugs. Think about it.”

“Okay,” Rey murmured. “I’ll think about it. But people are probably already writing to him for the job? I mean, he has a lot of followers...”

The excuse sounded feeble, even to her own ears. 


	2. Busybody

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously, on Crimson Eyes:
> 
> Rey is looking for a job.  
> She's currently living with her friends Rose, Jannah and Kaydel.  
> Kylo Ren has a very special interest.  
> Despite having a Youtube channel, he's very shy.  
> The girls already ship Reylo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm floored by all the wonderful comments I've received on the first chapter <3  
> I hope you'll enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it!

The following day, Rey waited for the house to empty out before finally opening her laptop and checking Kylo Ren’s channel. Since there were no new videos, she decided to watch every playlist available, from the first videos made with a cellphone, to the latest ones, made with a professional camera and edited in post-production. He sounded shy but his passion was more than evident, even in earlier videos, where he showed a couple of caterpillars he’d found around in the woods.

Out of curiosity, she began checking the comments as well, finding several insults from time to time, such as “Loser,” “Get a life,” “If you had a girlfriend you wouldn’t play with insects,” and so on, and that made her blood boil. She checked the comments under his last few videos, finding more horrible insults. “It was better when you only showed your hands,” “Did a moth bite your lip lmao,” and “You look like a creep” were more than enough to push her to open her email account to finally write to him. She had endured plenty of creeps ogling her during her life, plus harassment from that Plutt guy and his cronies for years, and Kylo Ren’s eyes were not the eyes of a creep. He just seemed like a shy, deeply lonely person with a very special interest, not a maniac or a sexual assaulter.

_ “Dear Kylo,” _ she wrote.  _ “I’m currently unemployed and I can help you until October. I don’t have allergies and I’m not easily grossed out. I know nothing about bugs, but I’m good with my hands (I’ve worked as a car and bike mechanic, a dog and baby sitter, a dishwasher, and a waitress). Let me know if the position is still available.” _

She signed the email with a simple  _ “Rey,” _ –no surname–and watched his last video again. Her phone pinged after only a couple of minutes: it was an e-mail from him.

_ “Rey,  _

_ Nice to meet you! How are you? You’re the first one to contact me, so the job is yours if you want it. We can meet tomorrow if you’d like, so you can see the moths and the house, and decide if everything is to your liking. I’ll leave you my number.” _

He’d asked how she was. Rey beamed, immediately pasted his number into her phone, and called him straight away. He picked up after only two rings. 

“Hello?”

“Hey! It’s Rey here,” she exclaimed. 

His voice was beautiful even filtered by her crappy phone: she could listen to him for hours.

“Hey! It’s a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for contacting me!”

“Well, I’m really in need of a job right now, so it was the natural thing to do. Can I come to see the house then?”

“Yes, absolutely. Do you want to come tomorrow morning or tomorrow afternoon? As you can imagine, I’m always here,” he laughed sadly.

Rey threw a glance around the apartment. She needed to clean the living room, the bathroom, and the kitchen as soon as possible, it would take her a few hours, at least. 

“Tomorrow afternoon would be better. Is six pm okay for you?”

“That’s a bit close to twilight. Could you come earlier?”

“O-okay. Just save my number and send me your address, I’ll be there by five.”

***

In the end, Rey didn’t manage to make it there by five, despite Kylo living just an hour from her. Her phone decided to die right before she exited the main route, entering a gravel road flanked by cornfields. She connected it to a power bank she always kept under her seat, and waited for it to charge a bit. Time passed, and the sun slowly went down. She read an old magazine she found in the backseat, and when her phone had enough battery to be turned on again, she found three missed calls from Kylo and a couple of messages.

_**Are you okay?** _

_**I really hope nothing happened, please call me asap.** _

_**Got an emergency, won’t be home until tomorrow morning. I hope you’re safe.** _

These greeted her when she opened her messaging app, and she huffed, hugging the steering wheel. Google was telling her that Kylo’s house was only ten minutes away, and she didn’t really want to go back home, so she kept driving on the gravel road until the cornfields ended and the trees began.

While she traversed the woods, Rey felt something strange, like there was someone spying on her. The sensation, usually enough to give her goosebumps, didn’t bother her in the slightest this time. On the contrary, she almost felt like there was someone out there ready to protect her, looking upon her from afar. After Rose lost her sister Paige in an accident, she had told Rey several times how sometimes she still felt her sister’s presence beside her, like she was back from the dead to help her during hard times, to protect and nurture her.

That always sounded absurd to Rey’s ears. In any case, she had no one to look down upon her. She’d always been alone, with no family, no parents ready to love her despite her flaws, ready to protect her even after their death. They got rid of her like she was an insurmountable burden, leaving her to fend for herself at the ripe age of five. Now, this presence was almost warm, a reassuring sensation amongst the darkness and the trees.

Kylo Ren’s house greeted Rey, right on top of a gentle slope surrounded by green. She parked her car between some fruit trees–were those pears?–and began to look around, mindful of the mysterious presence.

Kylo was right, the house was quite big and it looked downright ancient. The body of the building facing the orchard was illuminated by strong, yellowish lights, and right over the main gate was a small tower with mullioned windows. Rey recognized it from a couple of videos that Kylo had uploaded during the last weeks: his cages with the moths were up there. 

She approached the gate to take a look at the inner courtyard: there was a car parked there–an old Ford Falcon–and the back of the building hosted another turret, smaller than the one on the front and covered with tiny openings. Rey was pretty sure that it was a dovecote, even if this was the first one she’d seen in her life, and it wasn’t illuminated as well as the rest of the house, its cubic shape dark against the purplish sky. The gate was, of course, closed, but there was a buzzer right in front of her–the label on it said “SOLO”, and she poked it, just to see if there was someone home. No one answered, predictably. 

But, upon taking another look at the dovecote, Rey noticed that there was something, or better,  _ someone _ there: a dark, tall shape emerged from the roof, wearing what looked like a cape, with two oblong shapes protruding from their head, like a pair of horns. Its eyes– a deep, cold, red, contrasting eerily with the darkness of their silhouette–roamed over their surroundings, finally settling on the gates, settling on her. Rey’s breath hitched, and she felt goosebumps rise all over her skin. The creature was looking directly at her, and she felt like she couldn’t move, like she couldn’t run away. She shivered, helpless.

“Kylo?” she asked, finally. “Is that you?”

The being didn’t move, but a loud hiss exploded behind Rey, making her jolt. Scared by the sudden noise, her poor heart threatening to burst out of her ribcage, she turned around, her fist ready to hit whoever was there. But there was no one, save for fizzling spurts of water now irrigating the orchard: it was just the automatic system. Calmer, she turned around again, to see if the mysterious creature was still there, but the roof was empty now. Relieved, she slowly returned to her car, her shoes squeaking over the wet grass, stealing glances at the house from time to time. There was no one out there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Twitter @persimonne666


	3. The New Job

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously, on Crimson Eyes:
> 
> Finally, Rey contacts Kylo Ren.  
> Due to force majeure, Rey and Kylo didn’t meet.  
> There is a mysterious being in the woods surrounding Kylo’s house!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the support <3.  
> Show some love to [MissCoppelia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissCoppelia/pseuds/MissCoppelia), she's betaing this fic like a champ!

Back at her friends’ apartment, Rey told no one about what had just happened. She pretended to have a migraine, putting an audiobook on and closing her eyes while the girls made dinner in their Lilliputian kitchenette, trying to not disturb her too much. Rey felt guilty for lying to her friends, but she surely couldn’t tell them she’d seen a giant creature with crimson eyes at the ASMR Moth Guy’s house. They didn’t even know she’d contacted him. Soon, exhaustion overcame her and she fell asleep on the sofa, headphones still on her head.

She called Kylo back the following morning, explaining that her phone had died right before she could reach him. She was almost tempted to tell him about her strange encounter at his house, but she decided to keep silent about snooping around while he wasn’t home. He asked if she wanted to meet him again in the afternoon, and she said yes, promising to arrive around four pm this time.

Rey was strangely excited to return to Kylo's house, and not thinking about the crimson-eyed creature was almost impossible now. She increased her speed on the highway, and her heartbeat sped up as she finally turned onto the gravel road between the cornfields. This time, there was someone waiting for her, right in the middle of the road: it was Kylo Ren himself. She stopped the car as soon as she saw him, and walked the rest of the way, her heartbeat speeding up for no reason. 

He was tall, and broad, standing between the rows of corn. Surely Rey made a fool of herself gawking at him, since he was way cuter in person than in his videos. He had several beauty marks on his face, and when he smirked at her, lifting a corner of his mouth, a lovely dimple appeared in the middle of his cheek.

“Hello!”

He greeted her simply raising his right hand. “Hey,” he said. “I’m Kylo Ren.”

“I know!” Rey exclaimed, silently chastising herself. “I mean, from Youtube.”

“Of course. I came here so even if your phone dies I can show you the road to my house.”

Rey nodded. That was really considerate of him, and she decided to keep mum about the fact that she already knew how to reach his house. They got in the car, and she drove slowly on the uneven road, until they finally entered the woods. This time, Rey’s senses weren’t overpowered by the strange sensation of being observed that she felt the previous night. Kylo didn’t bother with small talk, thankfully, limiting himself to guide her along the road. She glimpsed at him from time to time: he had a very elegant profile, his face was deliciously freckled and he smelled really good, of something she wasn’t able to place but that made her feel somehow warm and safe.

Once they arrived at his house, Kylo opened the gates for her, so she could park her car beside the old Ford she’d already seen last night. 

“Is this your car?” she asked.

“Yes,” he nodded. “It’s quite old, I know.”

Rey blinked. If Kylo wasn’t home yesterday, but the Falcon was already there… she shook her head. Maybe there was another garage elsewhere, on the back of the building, perhaps?

“Do you have any other cars?”

Kylo looked at her, perplexed. “Should I?”

Rey tried to shrug nonchalantly, avoiding his gaze. “Not really, if it still works, why change it?”

He shrugged as well, and she chastised herself for having asked him that question. After all, it was no business of hers. Maybe yesterday someone had given him a lift. She should stop prying.

Kylo, unfazed by her nosiness, guided Rey on a tour of the house, starting from the courtyard. The building was an old farm, refurbished by his mother’s parents before WWII, and at the moment the only inhabitable part was the southern wing, the one with the windowed turret. The other wings seemed to be mostly empty, their rooms recycled as closets or storage to keep furniture.

“This was meant to become a hotel, but my grandparents died before actually opening it. My mother went into politics, and no one bought this building when she put it up for sale, thankfully. I moved here right after college, so I have all the space I need for my moths.”

“It’s beautiful,” Rey answered, a bit envious of him for having inherited a property like this, just because his family was rich.

He showed her the ground level first, which held a huge kitchen, a bathroom and another room with a couple of laundry machines and a dryer.

“You can use those, of course. The one on the left is only for the nets I use for the moths. Don’t use that, normal detergent can be harmful. I’ll put a label on it, so you’ll remember.”

Up the stairs there was another floor with several rooms. Kylo showed her his bedroom first, in the eastern corner, then another huge room with video equipment and several libraries hosting what looked like framed dead moths–his studio. After that, right under the turret, there was a living room with a fireplace, and then he guided her into another mostly empty room that he used to store caterpillars and cocoons. Rey shyly approached the crates, not knowing what to expect, and Kylo quickly showed her how he opened the single cocoons to check on the pupae, even letting her keep a couple of them in her hands. They were hard, and surprisingly, they wiggled their chubby tails when she touched them.

“I prepared these for the Butterfly Garden at the museum,” Kylo explained. “Now I need to open every box again and let the moths come out of the cocoons.”

“That's... a lot of moths,” Rey said.

“That’s why I need help,” he admitted, a pained expression taking hold of his features. “I could choose the easiest route and destroy them, but I could never bring myself to do something like that.”

His eyes were pained now, having conjured the idea of destroying thousands of cocoons. Rey felt compelled to take his hand in hers, but when she did, he jolted, and she retracted her hand as if she’d burned herself on white-hot metal.

“I’m so–I’m sorry,” he said then. “I’m not–I’m not really used to people.”

“No, I should be the one to apologize. That was uncalled for.”

Kylo lowered his gaze, avoiding her eyes. “I’ll show you your room. I prepared it yesterday. The furniture is quite old, but also new, since no one’s ever used it,” he said.

They exited the cocoon room, and he opened the last door in the corridor, in the western corner of the building. Upon seeing her bedroom, Rey’s jaw almost dislodged itself from her face: the furniture was vintage and stylish–not simply old–probably from the Sixties or from the Seventies, she couldn’t tell with precision, and the room itself was luminous and clean, with a king-sized bed, a small wardrobe, and a large desk right in front of the window.

“This is–this is incredible,” she commented.

“The door in the corner leads to your bathroom. I’m sorry there isn’t a shower, just an old tub.”

Rey turned towards Kylo, baffled. “Are you kidding? I’m currently sharing an apartment with a single bathroom with three other girls, and I don’t even have a room, I sleep on the couch. I–I’ve lost my job and my apartment in the span of a few days last month.”

Kylo lifted an eyebrow, perplexed. Surely he never found himself in a similar situation, being rich and everything.

“I’m sorry. That sounds… hard,” he commented. “Rey, if you need a place to stay after we finish with the moths, until you find another job, you can stay here. No one is going to occupy this room besides you.”

Rey’s mouth opened in awe. “That’s so generous of you. Thank you so much, I’ll think about it.”

“If you need anything, and I can provide it, never hesitate to ask, okay? Now let’s see the moths.”

They took another staircase, ending up in the turret: the windowed room was big, and full of what Rey could only describe as huge mesh laundry baskets, where the moths were free to roam. Finally, she had the opportunity to touch a real moth, and the thought made her a bit dizzy. Kylo picked it up from one of the net cages with a quick movement of his hand, putting it on her palm. The moth wasn’t as big as the one in his videos, but it was perfect, with its elegant light green wings. Its body was heavy, fluffy, and its small feet tickled her fingers a bit as it inspected her, but it wasn’t as disgusting as Kaydel kept saying the other day. It lazily flapped its wings a couple of times before deciding Rey’s hand was okay after all, settling in the middle of her palm.

 _“Actias luna,”_ he said then. “She’s still sleepy, they’re more active during the nighttime.”

Rey’s hand trembled. “It’s stunning. But I don’t know what to do now.”

“Try to put her back in the cage by yourself, taking it as I did before.”

Rey’s heartbeat sped up. Kylo had immobilized the moth between thumb and index without damaging it, there was no way she could try something so difficult in the span of a few seconds. Despite his size, he’d been dexterous and delicate at the same time, his vast training with those beautiful, frail creatures surely helping him. Rey lacked any experience on that front.

“Maybe–maybe in a few days?” she proposed. “I don’t feel ready, I don’t want to hurt it or anything.”

“Okay,” he said, and he brushed his fingers with hers without thinking twice, lifting the moth from her hand and bringing it to the cage again. 

Rey was dazed. Earlier he’d almost reacted to her touch with fear, but now he didn’t hesitate. His fingers were warm and big, and his devotion to the little flying creatures so evident that it almost made her head spin. She’d never met someone like him before. He was genuine, spontaneous, and he wasn’t hiding his vulnerability in front of her like the other guys she knew. He wasn’t interested in showing off to her either. She liked him.

“I’m in,” Rey said finally, clearing her voice, as he zipped the cage closed again. “I want to work with you this summer.”

Kylo turned towards her, and smiled, his dimple making an appearance again. “That’s good.”

“I just need to retrieve my belongings, maybe have dinner with my friends and I can begin whenever you want, tomorrow even,” Rey continued, trembling in excitement, almost berating herself for not having brought her things with her straight away. “I could come back tomorrow evening maybe?”

He carded his hand through his hair, and puffed his cheeks, exhaling. “It would be better if you returned in the morning. Even the day after tomorrow, it doesn’t matter.”

“But if I get here tomorrow night, we can begin working straight away the next day,” Rey insisted, eager to start as soon as possible.

“I have…” Kylo began, fumbling with his hands. “A very strange sleep schedule? I can only sleep deeply right after sunset, then I work for a bit, then I sleep again until dawn.” He laughed uneasily. “It’s an old insomnia problem.”

“You could just give me the keys, and I’ll try to be as quiet as possible.”

Kylo focused his eyes on hers then, like she’d just said the most intelligent thing he’d ever heard. “Okay. I don’t have to leave the house tomorrow, you can take my keys. I’ll have copies made for you in the next few days. Just–just don’t try to wake me up when you arrive, I–I sleep with earplugs, I won’t hear you at all.”

Rey smiled, extending her hand. “Deal.”

Kylo approached her slowly, almost fearfully, like he hadn't just touched her fingers to retrieve the luna moth. He looked at her then, making Rey squirm under his intense, inquisitive gaze before finally their fingers brushed. Rey didn’t dare take his palm in hers, and waited for him to make the first step without rushing him. His fingertips exploring hers reminded her of the moth’s movements, when it tickled her with its tiny, fluffy feet. Then Kylo surprised her again, taking her hand in his bigger one, squeezing it in a firm, reassuring way. She squeezed back, smiling: she was ready to begin this new, exciting adventure with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Twitter @persimonne666


	4. Farewell, My Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously, on Crimson Eyes:
> 
> Finally, Rey and Kylo meet in person.  
> He lives in an abandoned hotel.  
> Moths are a lot of work.  
> Kylo doesn’t like to be touched, but maybe he doesn’t mind Rey touching him...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I'm so happy you're liking this story <3 <3 <3 I hope you'll like this chapter too!

That evening, the girls welcomed Rey’s news with thundering applause–Kaydel even shed a couple of tears. They hugged her, and decided to organize a girls’ night for the following day, just as Rey predicted. What she hadn’t expected was to get cards and gifts from all of them, and now it was her turn to cry, right in front of her sushi. Luckily they’d reserved a private room at the restaurant, so they could make all the noise they wanted, or, in Rey’s case, cry a river of happy tears.

Jannah hugged her tight. “You know that our home is always open for you, yeah? If you still need a place in October, come back.”

“That’s funny,” she said then, drying her tears with her napkin. “The Moth Guy told me the same thing yesterday. He really seems to be great, overall, just a bit lonely. And nerdy. And he smells so good, I’ve never met a guy that smells as good as him.”

Rose clapped her hands, while Kayled produced a tote bag from under the table, full of badly wrapped packages. “Speaking of Kylo Ren, we have something for you!”

Rey accepted the butterfly print bag, barely holding back more tears. It was beautiful, and she opened the card peeking from its rim with trembling hands. It was handmade, with a good quality print of a picture they took the previous summer while they were sunbathing at the river.

 _“Congratulations on your new job, Moth Gal!”_ it said on the inside, next to her friends’ signatures.

“Open the rectangular packet!” Rose demanded.

Ripping the paper open, Rey found a nice, wooden frame with cute, chubby caterpillars drawn on it, still smelling a bit of paint.

“I made that,” Jannah admitted, blushing. “Maybe let it air for a few days if the smell bothers you? On such short notice, I didn't have the time to dry it properly.”

“Thank you so much!” Rey exclaimed, hugging her again.

“It’s the right size for the card,” Kaydel added, and Rey promptly put it inside the frame, the picture of them proudly displayed amongst the caterpillars: it was lovely. 

“Now, the small packet,” Rose continued.

Rey blushed upon seeing that the small packet was, in fact, a box of magnum-sized condoms. “W–Why?” she asked, baffled.

Jannah poked her. “Come on Rey, don’t you remember Kylo’s hands?”

“That–that doesn’t mean I’m going to have sex with him,” she squealed, a bit uncomfortable by the idea–but a bit titillated as well. 

She couldn’t deny that he was very attractive to her, and not only physically. He was protective and vulnerable, strong and sensitive at the same time, a mystery she couldn’t wait to unwrap. But at the same time, she knew how unwanted advances could be bothersome, and Kylo looked like he was a very private person. She had a long summer ahead.

“There’s still another packet,” she stated, once her blush abated.

“That's Plan B,” Kaydel said. “In the off chance that Moth Guy isn’t interested.”

Rey opened that package as well, finding a beautiful–and surely expensive–double vibrator inside, coupled with a bottle of hypoallergenic lube. She blushed again, hiding her face in her hands.

“We’re betting on him being prostrated at your feet before May,” Rose whispered. “But if he doesn’t, you’re not alone, at least.”

***

It was quite late already, and Rey hoped to not wake Kylo up: she’d had periods of insomnia as a child, especially during her stay at the orphanage, so she could understand his sleeping habits perfectly. She checked if Kylo’s keys were in her pocket before saying goodbye to the girls: their weight was reassuring against her leg, and she quickly drove towards what was going to be her house for the next few months, her head in the clouds between what her friends had said about Kylo and the hope of finally finding belonging in her life, for once. 

Rey’s mind raced to the crimson-eyed creature as well, assuming that it was real and she hadn’t hallucinated it the other evening. Slowing down the car, she took the now familiar gravel road between the cornrows. It was quite dark now, away from the lit streets, and she had to turn her high beams on. But then, she saw something right before the first trees, something small and red pointed at her, right in the middle of the road. Her heartbeat sped up, and she braked, the tires groaning on the uneven terrain: her mysterious friend was there, and her survival instinct told her to turn around and never come back. She shushed it, knowing in the depths of her heart that she wasn’t in danger, somehow.

“Please, go away,” she whispered, her eyes never leaving the two crimson spots.

Predictably, no one listened to Rey’s plea, and the mysterious being came closer, the dark silhouette getting bigger and bigger under the car’s yellowish headlamps, while its eyes lost almost all their brightness, maintaining their unsettling colour. Rey’s heart was almost in her throat, and she locked the doors of the car, hoping for the best. The creature halted then, and Rey could finally see it better. It was tall, with a broad chest, and its skin wasn’t black, but a fascinating medium tone of grey, beautiful and terrifying at the same time. 

“What are you,” she murmured, her eyes mesmerized by its presence and every hair on her body standing up in fear.

A truck honked in the distance, the dull sound reverberating across the fields, and the creature crouched, taking flight in the span of a second, leaving Rey aghast. What she’d thought to be a cape was in fact a huge pair of wings, trembling slightly in the night breeze, taking the crimson eyed being far from her again. Her hands still shaking, she started the car again, driving slowly across the woods, the familiar sensation of being watched, of not being alone returning to her.

“Fucker,” she exclaimed, adrenaline now filling her limbs. “You can fly.”

As she stopped in front of the house, Rey couldn’t help but wonder if Kylo Ren knew of the creature. Pragmatic as she was, Rey didn’t believe in anything she couldn’t see. She’d never been one to believe in cryptid tales and conspiracies, but she’d seen the mysterious being with her own eyes, twice even. She’d surely heard of Mothman before–no, she never watched the Richard Gere movie–and she could only describe Crimson Eyes as some sort of giant Lepidoptera. Maybe it was here, with Kylo, because of his moths? Like a guardian of sorts? Or maybe it was simply attracted to Kylo’s orchard? This was another mystery she had to unravel.

Mind still reeling, she unloaded the car, keeping an eye on her surroundings. The creature wasn’t there, but she could somehow perceive its presence, checking on her from afar. She fumbled a bit with the keys, half of her brain distracted by the sensation of being observed, while the other half was trying to remember which key opened the main gates. There were only three keys in the bundle, so thankfully it wasn’t difficult to find the right one. Kylo had explained to her that the shortest one was for the gate, and the grey one was for the main wooden door on the ground floor. He hadn’t talked about the third key, but it looked like something that could open a strongbox, so she hadn’t pried further.

Closing the door after herself, Rey stopped by the kitchen to take some water, and then she brought all her belongings upstairs, making several trips. There was no trace of Kylo Ren in the house–there was no light coming from under his door–save for a post-it on her desk. His calligraphy was surprisingly good.

**_Welcome back, Rey!_ **

**_Breakfast will be at 7, have a good night._ **

**_K._ **

Putting the note next to her friends’ framed picture, Rey decided to quickly unpack her clothes as well and see if there was enough hot water to finally try her personal bathtub. She couldn’t remember having had a bath ever, if she thought about it–every foster home she’d lived in had been equipped with a shower only. The sensation of slipping her whole body into the warm, soapy water was luxurious: she closed her eyes, leaning her neck against a folded towel, letting her mind dwell again on Crimson Eyes, the creature, and what it could possibly want from her, since it could have easily killed her the other evening. But despite her fear, she’d never sensed any danger, so far. On the contrary.

The sensation of being watched was still there, stronger than ever. Rey opened an eye, throwing a glance towards the window. If there was someone out there, she couldn’t say.


	5. Moths, Moths, Moths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously, on Crimson Eyes:
> 
> The girls prepare Rey a whole self-care bag for her new job.  
> The Creature appears again!  
> Rey doesn’t know if she should be scared by it or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know that [MissCoppelia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissCoppelia/pseuds/MissCoppelia) is the best? She's betaing this story, making everything possible. <3
> 
> This is the "nerd" chapter. I hope you'll enjoy it!

The following day Kylo welcomed her with what Rey could only call _a proper feast._ He’d prepared bacon, eggs, pancakes, yogurt with dried fruit and chocolate flakes, orange juice and tea, all for her.

“Wow,” Rey commented, upon finding him already active way before 7 am–waking up so early wasn’t completely unappealing, then.

“I didn’t know what you liked,” he explained, a bit embarrassed. “So I prepared a bit of everything.”

“Well, my friends refer to me as a _good fork,_ I can eat anything,” Rey said, sitting down and starting to attack the bacon before it could go cold; Kylo followed her example, sitting in front of her. “How does it work, with the groceries and so on?”

“Write what you need on the blackboard there,” he said, nodding at the wall beside the fridge. “Our neighbours have a farm, so they can provide eggs, vegetables, milk and cheese once a week. They also have meat, but I usually order that once a month. For the rest, there is a discount market not far from here right before the highway, but it’s good, I promise. They deliver stuff too, so you don’t need to drive there, if you don’t have the time.”

“I’m not used to this,” Rey admitted. “Living in town I only bought what I needed, and, uhm… I often had takeout.” 

“Well, it only needs a bit of planning, that’s all. I never have takeout, no one is willing to bring food all the way out here,” he laughed sadly. “But I know how to make good hamburgers.”

Rey finished her eggs with a satisfied moan. They were delicious, and she couldn’t wait to taste his pancakes, and the hamburgers as well, and everything else. “Maybe if you’d like we could go to town one of these evenings? I know a good sushi place.”

Kylo blushed a bit, letting his hair fall on his face. “That would be impossible, I’m sorry. I don’t want to mess with my… sleeping schedule, but I appreciate the offer nonetheless.”

Rey slid her hand across the table, poking his pinky with her own. He kept avoiding her gaze, but poked her back in a playful way. Small steps, right?

***

After breakfast Kylo explained that the first thing he did in the morning and the last thing he did in the evening was feeding the caterpillars with fresh leaves. He gave Rey a billhook to prune some of the trees from the orchard, teaching her that each kind of caterpillar had a favourite tree, or a favourite family of trees to feed from. The second thing that needed to be done before the caterpillars began eating on the fresh leaves, was to clean their cages, removing the old, withered branches and the feces.

“I had no idea they pooped so much,” Rey laughed, quickly filling what she’d renamed _The Poop Bin,_ a normal plastic bin where she threw the poop.

“Well, they won’t poop after their metamorphosis, so they need to have the most fun now,” Kylo laughed as well. “Let them poop as much as they want, it doesn’t even stink.”

Rey snickered loudly. “Right. I forgot moths don’t have a mouth. They only behave like drunk, horny teenagers, like you said.”

“Yeah, they only live to mate once they come out of their cocoon, they’re like… colorful flying genitals or something like that. Ruled by their biology.”

Rey grimaced, making Kylo laugh again.

“To be honest, some species can still feed, but I don’t have many of those at the moment. We’ll give them some honey later, that’s a task you can do without my help.”

After cleaning, Kylo checked to see if there were any pupae around, and put them in cages bigger than the others, reserved only for them, equipped with dry branches and boxes full of wood chips. Apparently, some of the pupae needed to shelter underground, while others produced a silk cocoon, and they could be placed outside of the wood chips, or on the branches, into the cutest small pockets made of paper towels.

“This is not something you can do alone yet, but you’ll learn soon how to move pupae from one box to another. Tomorrow I’ll show you how to dig for them in the wood chips, and I’ll teach you how to prepare the paper pockets.”

Rey nodded. It didn’t even feel like work to her. She could stay outside, tend to animals, craft things with her own hands. It was fun so far.

“The next job is easier, you can do it alone from the beginning,” Kylo said. “You need to check if there are moths on the branches, remove them, but only if their wings are already dry, and bring them in the other room, with the other adult moths.”

Rey approached him, observing the insides of the cage. “Oh! There is one there, behind that large branch!”

“Very good,” he praised her. “But he’s still waiting for his wings to fully open, you need to wait a couple of hours, still. If he were ready, you would need to put him in a cage, bring him to the turret and then transfer him in a cage with his peers.”

“How can you tell that’s a boy?”

“His antennae are huge and feathery. In some species, the male is smaller than the female, in others, they have different colorations, or particular spots. I also used to have a species with wingless females last year.”

“Really? What were those moths like? Rey asked, surprised.

“They were cute, chubby and fluffy. When this ordeal is over, I’ll buy a couple of those to show you.”

Rey smiled, feeling warm all of a sudden, not even knowing why. They quickly moved to the other cocoon cages, with several adults ready to mate there. Kylo showed her how to take them in her hands, and Rey managed to do it without fear of harming them, even if her heart was beating wildly in her chest. They brought the moths to the turret then, and once there, Kylo burdened Rey with the task of putting each moth in the right cage. 

“Some of them aren’t moving, is that normal?”

“Are they like... not moving while still being perched on the nets, or are they on the ground?”

“There are a couple on the ground, they look… a bit dead?” Rey squeaked.

Kylo approached her with a cardboard box. “The dead ones need to go in there. Just be extremely careful with them, we wouldn’t want to ruin their wings.”

“Why?” she asked, turning her head towards Kylo.

Maybe for the first time, his eyes stopped on her face, and he didn’t avoid her gaze. “That's my primary source of income, now that the museum is closed. I sell dead moths to collectors, but I need them to be perfect, or almost perfect, for that. I can still sell imperfect specimens to schools, but they don’t pay much for those.”

“I see,” Rey answered. “I thought people used to… pin butterflies while still alive.”

The thought was a bit morbid, but at this point Rey wasn’t even sure if insects could feel pain or not. The only knowledge she had came from Kylo’s Youtube channel, and he’d never showed gratuitous animal cruelty so far.

“Some people do that, and the bugs they sell are perfect, but I refuse to torture my animals for money. I let them mate, hoping that they won’t fly too much around, tattering their wings, and I pin them only after they’re already dead.”

Rey nodded. “That’s why you don’t want to destroy the cocoons either,” she observed.

“Yes. I want them to live normally, mate, and lay eggs. That’s the most sensible thing to do. We’ll destroy part of the eggs, of course, I can’t keep hatching all those moths without a place like the museum to back me up. But all the animals that are already born will finish their life cycle in the most natural way for them.”

“Can’t you… just release the eggs outside?”

“I already do that for the endemic species I keep, but I have many exotic species as well, and if no one buys their eggs, I’ll have no choice. They don’t belong here.”

Rey dared to take his hand then, squeezing his palm, and he didn’t flinch at her touch anymore. His hand was big and dry, its warmth seeping into her smaller one, and she found herself liking it. He lowered his head–the tips of his ears a bit pinker than before, and a few seconds passed before he withdrew his hand from hers, pretending to look at his watch.

“It’s almost eleven. Do you like spaghetti?” He asked.

“Of course I like spaghetti!”

“I’ll cook for you,” he said excitedly, showing her the dimple. “Then this afternoon we’ll help the moths have sex.”

Rey’s couldn’t help laughing loudly, her cheeks almost hurting. Her eyes bugged out at his casual statement and she couldn’t help but burst into a fit of laughter. Her cheeks wound up aching long after they headed into the kitchen to make their lunch.

***

They ate sitting in the grass, with only plates, forks, two glasses of water and napkins. Kylo had lost time setting the table, but a single pout by Rey had been enough to make him capitulate, and here they were, the grass tickling Rey’s feet. At one point, Kylo rolled his sleeves and his pants up, stretching his impossibly long body on the lawn, making Rey’s mouth water a bit, and sighing loudly as she tried to look elsewhere.

“Is everything okay?” Kylo asked.

“Just a bit tired, that’s all.”

“Well, just sleep for a bit. Roll your pants and your sleeves up, you’ll feel immediately better.”

“Nah, I didn’t shave my legs, I’ll pass.”

“I didn’t shave mine, either,” he winked. “We’re even.”

She laughed, promptly rolling her pants up. He was right, it was the best sensation, after having passed the last month unemployed, homeless and crammed on Rose’s sofa. She stretched beside him, closing her eyes, almost tempted to take his hand again, barely refraining from making a fool of herself during their first day together–technically, he was her employer. He smelled good, and she had to force herself to think about something else, her mind racing to the Creature. Where could it be, now? Was it sleeping during the day? What did it eat? With the image of those red eyes impressed on her retina, she fell asleep.

***

“Rey.”

Someone was calling her, but she didn’t want to wake up. She was warm, cocooned in something as soft as silk, surrounded by Kylo’s smell. 

“Rey!”

She opened her eyes, startled. Mercifully she wasn’t under the sun anymore, the turret had protected her from a sunstroke with its shadow. Kylo was in front of her, wearing a really nice pair of sunglasses, his dimple on full display.

“So–sorry,” she stammered. “I fell asleep.”

“I know,” he said. “In the meantime, I went to the hardware store to retrieve some plexiglass, and I made a copy of the keys for you. You can hang them in the kitchen, right next to the blackboard.”

Rey pulled herself up, realizing only then that there was the warmest blanket on her, and it smelled of him. Kylo gave her the bundle of only two keys–the strange, long one was missing–and she quickly pocketed them, getting on her feet and folding the blanket.

“Do you want some coffee or tea? I have also homemade honey, we could share it with the Sphingidae moths upstairs. I’ll show you how to prepare it for them.”

Rey followed Kylo into the kitchen, where he prepared a solution with water and honey for the moths while they waited for a coffee to brew. Rey watched carefully, mesmerized by the movements of his hands and his forearms, all pale skin, sinews, tendons, and veins–unfairly elegant for a man so huge.

“So, the moths we’re feeding have mouths?” she asked then.

He had the gall to lick his thumb in front of her before answering, making her throat go dry as his Adam’s apple bobbed. 

“Most Sphingidae have a proboscis. They’re pollinators, they use it to eat nectar, and they’re good flyers for that reason. The other moths I have are Saturniidae, and they don’t feed. They’re also… dumber. But still beautiful.”

Finally the coffee was ready, and Rey finally had something to distract herself from creeping on Kylo. “So, if they eat, they live longer than a week?”

“Yes, they can live a couple of months, even. Let’s go, the solution is ready.”

Once upstairs, Rey had to soak some paper towels in the honeyed solution, put them in a dish, uncoil the moths’ proboscises with a toothpick–and that had been hard since the moths actually _fought_ her, the black ones _screaming_ and _squeaking_ as well– and Kylo, after giving her instructions, sat down in a corner, laughing his ass off.

After that ordeal, it was time for mating, but Rey just wanted to go to sleep again.

“Tell me again why they need to mate when we’re going to destroy the eggs?”

“When there are so many moths in a small place, males can’t feel the females anymore, and they just flap around, breaking their wings, trying to mate with each other, sometimes injuring themselves as well. If we help them mate, they don’t move too much, their wings are okay, then they die, I pin them in beautiful frames and my buyers are happy,” he announced, turning towards her as he walked to the other corner of the room. “We eat. I pay you. I buy more moths next year. You buy whatever you want. Rinse, repeat.”

Rey huffed, following him. 

_“Hyalophora cecropia,”_ he said, unzipping the first cage in the row. “Their sexual dimorphism lies in their antennae, easy to spot. You just need to pick them up and make their abdomens touch, and they’ll latch eventually.”

Rey nodded. The moth was huge, beautiful, fluffy, and striped, with a red and white body that reminded her of a sausage. 

“Thumb and index on each side of the abdomen, pick the male up, I’ll grab the female.”

Rey’s hand trembled. The moth didn’t squeak this time, but she could bet that he was giving her a _compound_ stink eye. When she finally managed to pick him up she was shocked about how downright _heavy_ he was. Kylo approached her with the female, which was even bigger, moving his hand as Rey tried to keep hers as steady as possible. He rubbed his moth delicately against Rey’s, until they finally latched.

“Wow,” she commented. “It worked.”

“It’s not difficult to breed this species.” 

“How does it work in nature? Do they scent each other?”

“The female doesn’t move too much,” he explained. “Both sexes produce pheromones with their bodies and they smell very attractive to each other, but it’s the male the one that has to actually fly to reach the female.”

“That’s why males’ antennae are bigger?”

“That’s why males’ antennae are bigger. They’re quite impressive, they can sense a female from a very long distance, even miles, and they’ll fly to her, ready to do anything to mate with her. Then they’ll circle her for a bit, getting to know her before starting the proper intercourse.”

“That’s a quite powerful smell,” Rey commented. “I wonder if there’s anything similar with humans.”

Kylo smirked, showing his dimple, but didn’t answer her question. He smelled really good to her, and she wondered if she’d been able to pick up on his pheromones, somehow. Then, she thought about Crimson Eyes, and the strange sensation of being observed she’d always felt at night around Kylo’s house. A thrill raced through her spine. Pheromones could work only on members of the same species, right?

“... Rey?” Kylo called to her.

“Oh! Sorry, I zoned out.”

“I think it’s safe to put the moths in the cage again. They will keep having sex for a while, we can’t stay here forever.”

“Right.”

“Let’s help another species bump nasties now. Have you ever heard of _Attacus edwardsii?”_

***

Rey wasn’t used to having dinner at 6 pm, but since there was someone cooking for her, she couldn’t complain. Kylo sealed himself in his room right before dusk, after she insisted on washing the dishes herself, since he’d been the one feeding her. After she finished, she tried to call her friends before taking another bubble bath. Downstairs the signal was quite bad, so she went into the orchard to speak, hoping to not disturb Kylo too much. She talked briefly to Jannah and Rose–Kaydel was showering–and they predictably asked if she had already started seducing her employer, making her laugh. 

“It’s way too early for that! But he’s a great cook, and he smells incredible. I would be lucky if he showed interest in me… but it looks like he’s only in love with his bugs.”

When she ended the call, it was already dark, and a chilly wind rose, making the trees around her look ominous. Crimson Eyes was out there, she could feel its presence, she could feel its gaze crawling on the exposed skin of her neck. Turning around, she scanned her surroundings, looking for the now familiar eyes of the Creature. Despite her survival instinct screaming at her, she almost hoped to meet it again, but there were no red, luminous spots amongst the dark trees.

“I know you’re out there,” she whispered.

No one answered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this <3


	6. Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously, on Crimson Eyes:
> 
> Kylo Ren is a great cook.  
> Moths are really a lot of work.  
> Kylo Ren’s smell is so good!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello guys, thank you for all the comments and the support, I'm in awe <3  
> This story has reached 150 kudos and I couldn't be happier <3
> 
> I wanted to let you know that I'm modding a Twitter page that recs fanfictions under 150 kudos - @Reylo_Gems - and we also have our own discord server where we talk about fanfictions. DM the Twitter account for an invite!  
> My co-mods are Waffles, Dot and Sadie and we would be thrilled to have you with us.

After the first week of work with Kylo, Rey could definitely confirm that:

-working with moths was tiring as hell, but also fun;

-the pay was excellent;

-she had developed a huge crush on her employer.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t tried anything with her so far, maybe because he was too shy, or maybe because he really wasn’t interested. He was 30–yes, she’d asked him–and he’d apparently never had a relationship, despite looking so good, and being so kind and generous. Okay, his features could be considered “unusual” by some people, but she found him gorgeous and all her friends had been pleasantly surprised when he’d showed his face for the first time on Youtube. And he looked like a marble statue under his nerdy T-shirts when she’d finally seen him shirtless in the orchard. She couldn’t see how anyone could refuse him.

When she couldn’t stand to think about Kylo any more, her mind turned toward the Creature. It was surely out there at night–Rey could feel its presence around the house–but it hadn’t bothered her in the slightest. Sometimes she caught herself looking outside of the window while she was reading in her bedroom or having a bath, but there was no trace of Crimson Eyes.

After the second week, Rey was now knowledgeable enough to tend to the caterpillars, pupae and moths alone. Kylo had praised her immensely for how quick she’d learned everything, and had returned to pinning the dead bugs so he could sell them online, since the closing of the museum had created a large backlog. Work was still fun and extremely rewarding to her, but she solely missed his company, his wit, and the smell that made her feel so at home with him. They still saw each other during meals, of course, but he was so engrossed in preparing the frames to ship out that he didn’t speak much, his skin looking even more pale than usual, dark circles framing his deep set eyes.

One evening, after eating his famed hamburgers–they were excellent–she took a deep breath and, half-jokingly, told him that she missed him.

“W–What?” he gulped, almost spitting his beer.

Rey tried to hide her blush, laughing nervously.

“I’ve said that I almost miss you, now that you’re holed up in your studio. I’ve been pretty lonely lately. Moths are cute, but they can’t talk.”

Kylo looked at her like she’d grown two heads, and his eyes became cold all of a sudden, like she’d offended him somehow. Her heart sank, hoping that she hadn’t overstepped.

“I had no idea I could have this effect on people. It’s better if you don’t get too attached, Rey.”

She felt her blood pressure drop, quickly becoming dizzy. Rey was quite used to rejection by now, but his words still hurt. They hurt badly, and rage quickly filled her veins.

“You can’t tell me what to do,” she spat at him.

He looked at her, his eyes almost burning in their intensity, now.

“I’m not a nice man, Rey. You shouldn’t have feelings for me. No sane person should.”

“Oh, shut up. You are one of the nicest person I’ve known, and I have a pretty impressive amount of experience with assholes. I know what I’m saying.”

His lips began trembling then, and he blinked quickly, as he was trying to stop tears from falling.

“No. I’m a monster,” he finally whispered, his voice sounding almost desperate.

“No, you aren’t!” Rey exclaimed, but he stormed away from the room, leaving his beer unfinished.

***

Rey’s next call to her friends ended up being longer than usual, and she found herself wandering past the orchard, between the first trees of the wood, their rough trunks flanking an uneven path she’d never explored before. The sun was about to set, but Rose insisted on talking about what had happened with Kylo, so she kept walking.

“I’ll be unwrapping your gift soon,” Rey exhaled.

“I thought you had already… broken it, for fuck’s sake. It’s been three weeks Rey, how the hell did you manage to resist for so long?”

“I wake up at six every morning, and I clean caterpillar poop for the whole day. There are these hawk moths that wrestle me when I try to feed them, screaming at me, and I’m lucky I’m not the one that needs to cook as well or I would be dead tired. Nature is wonderful, but holy shit.” 

Rose laughed. “You’re loving it!”

“I’m loving it,” Rey laughed. “It’s the best job I’ve had in my life, but he’s being impossible, Rose. He’s keeping me away on purpose, but the reasons why are all in his head. I like him so much, and I don’t know what to do now.”

“It sounds like he’s afraid of rejection, so he strikes first to avoid getting hurt. I mean, if he were truly the monster he says he is, he would have told you you owe him sex because he’s a good guy or he’s giving you a job, or some shit like that.”

“I’ve known plenty of ‘ _nice guys,’_ and he’s not like that. He’s hating himself for something he’s not telling me. It’s probably nothing, but to him it’s something enormous that affects his whole life.”

“I think we can work on that. He never said he wasn’t interested, right? Because I think he is, deep down, and you just need to figure out what’s bothering him. I doubt he’s a serial killer, or anything like that. He even refuses to kill his bugs.”

When Rey closed the phone call, it was almost pitch black beneath the trees, and she cursed herself for having walked so far from the orchard. Fumbling with her phone, she looked for the flashlight app, but right when she finally found it, a subtle, entrancing smell overcame her senses, making her freeze on the spot. It was the same smell as Kylo’s blanket, the one he’d draped over her when she fell asleep on the lawn the first day. But Kylo wasn’t there, so this couldn’t be his smell; it had to be something, or _someone_ else. The familiar sensation of being watched slowly crept through Rey’s thoughts: the Creature was there, and it was pretty close. She wasn’t alone anymore. 

She felt herself stiffen as something creaked above her, a rustle of leaves preceding the absurd sensation of something soft and feathery moving above her head, above her hair. Rey closed her eyes, swallowing, her body so still that she didn’t even have the strength to start trembling. She needed to move, she needed to escape from this place, but her limbs weren’t cooperating, her thoughts turning to mud in her brain. She grimaced as the feathery things touched the nape of her neck, tickling her downy hair there, causing goosebumps to erupt all over her body, and then, all of a sudden, she started hearing a dull purr coming from above.

Curiosity won over sheer terror: ignoring the instinct that screamed for her to _run,_ Rey slowly turned her head towards the canopy of trees, the tip of her nose bumping against a bigger, pointier one. Her phone fell on the ground, the flashlight illuminating the being perched upside down over her, capturing its crimson, monochrome eyes, beautifully framed by long, soft lashes and fixed on her. She felt herself grow faint, but the realization that she was witnessing something unique and monstrous in the literal sense of the term gave her the strength to not fall.

The Creature blinked once, then sniffed her nose and purred loudly, its long, feathery antennae tickling her ears and the sides of her face. Those were clearly the antennae of a moth, a male moth, and it looked like this particular giant male moth was attracted to her. 

Rey gulped. “What are you?” she asked.

The Creature didn’t answer despite having a human looking mouth, still sniffing her with his quite sizable nose and prodding her with his feathery appendages. They were as long as Rey’s forearms, and she’d never felt anything more soft against her skin before. Rey closed her eyes then, unsure about what to do. Crimson Eyes didn’t seem interested in harming her, and he kept sniffing her even after he swiftly came down from the tree, his large and human-looking feet touching the ground in front of her.

She lifted her hands, crouching slowly to retrieve her phone, and he remained fixed on her, following her movements with his head. Rey lowered the intensity of the flashlight, trying to illuminate the Creature to the best of her abilities. Again, he didn’t move, following the light only with his mesmerizing eyes, and she could finally take a good look at his features.

He was downright stunning. His grey skin looked like velveteen and his wings were the deepest black, absorbing all the cold, bright light coming from her phone. The hair on his head and around his neck was dark as well, and dark stripes ran across his cheeks, exalting his bone structure–admitting that he was a vertebrate. Somehow, due to his size, he reminded her of Kylo: he was tall and broad, the expanse of his chest making her throat go dry, and the fur on his head and around his neck so soft and shiny–like spun silk–that she longed to card her fingers across it. 

But she couldn’t. What was even wrong with her? She simply couldn’t touch him like that, and she stepped back from him. 

“I’m returning home,” she announced. “Don’t follow me.”

The Creature blinked at her, lifting a hand, trying to reach her: it looked human, with four fingers, a thumb, and the sharpest claws she’d ever seen. Rey took another step, eyes fixed on his deep, red ones, and another. He didn’t move. She turned, and ran.


	7. Little Guy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously, on Crimson Eyes:
> 
> Rey has a huge crush on her employer.  
> Kylo Ren hates himself, and he thinks he’s not nice.  
> Rey has a very close encounter with Crimson Eyes.

Rey didn’t sleep that night. She even tried to use her vibrator, chasing a miserable orgasm down for a good twenty minutes. But she couldn’t concentrate enough, not even after she conjured memories of Kylo’s face with his adorable dimple, or images of his forearms and hands, so strong and delicate at the same time. She cleaned the toy, putting it in a drawer and kept tossing and turning on the mattress, the sheets entangled between her restless limbs.

The following morning she looked like Kylo had looked the previous day: pale to the point of being slightly greenish, with deep, dark bags under her eyes. She ate her breakfast alone for the first time since she moved in with him. He’d prepared her some pancakes before holing up in his studio, and, despite feeling ravenous, she picked at them and only barely finished. The morning proceeded as usual, feeding, and cleaning, and moving, and picking up small, desiccated corpses, all the _'circle of life'_ bullshit she couldn’t help loving and hating so much at the same time since her employer had left her alone to tend to the bugs.

Tired, she slumped on a chair, waiting for a moth to come out of its chrysalis before moving it to the turret. She couldn’t remember the name of the species, _Saturnia somethingii,_ but she knew it was a male because of its antennae. Like the Creature. She huffed. Her mind kept returning to him, to how he’d seemed entranced with her the previous evening. She wondered if she should tell Kylo about what had happened, or if it would be better to keep mum. She rested her head against the wall then, closing her eyes, just for a couple of seconds. 

When Rey opened her eyes again, she felt dizzy and disoriented, but her stomach told her that it was almost time for lunch. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but she was just too tired to function today. It was time to look for Kylo and force him to leave his cave to feed her. She checked on the moth again, finding him on a branch while he tried to pump hemolymph into his still crumpled wings, but something was looking very wrong with one of those: while the left wing was almost fully extended, the right one was still lying crumpled along his body, unmoving.

Rey almost ran to Kylo’s studio. Knocking on his door, she didn’t even wait for him to answer, barging into the room: he was encasing frames in styrofoam, preparing them for the courier who was expected to come that afternoon.

“Hey,” he greeted her, unfazed by her coarseness.

“Hey–I think that there’s something wrong with one of the moths. He’s trying to stretch his wings but something looks very wrong with–” she said, but he silenced her by lifting his hand.

“Let’s go,” Kylo said, abandoning his tools on a desk and following her to the caterpillar room.

Once in front of the cage, something she could never have imagined happened: Kylo knelt down, observing the moth carefully, without touching him. Rey, unsure about how to proceed, kept her distance, remaining behind him, but she could clearly hear him whisper something to the moth, and then an unmistakable sniff. He remained kneeling in front of the cage for a handful of minutes, his whole chest heaving, his right hand running to his face from time to time: he was crying.

Her heart pounding, Rey exited the door slowly, careful to not make any noise, and went downstairs to set the table for lunch. She’d never imagined her employer crying over a moth, even one so severely deformed. He had been dealing with bugs for over a decade by now, was he really so sensitive to the fate of an insect doomed to live for a few days after coming out of its cocoon? Her hands trembled as she folded the paper napkins. It was the first time she’d seen an adult man cry in her life, and knowing that it was Kylo, she wanted to run upstairs again to reassure him that everything was going to be okay. 

Her hands still shaking, she toasted some bread, cut some salami, and some cheese, and then she hastily threw a salad together. She barely knew how to throw more than two ingredients together, but she didn’t want him to worry about lunch, in the state he was in. When she went upstairs again, she found him cross-legged on the floor, in front of the cage, the moth crawling on the palm of his hand. At least it looked like he was still able to walk.

“Hey,” she whispered, announcing her presence. “I’ve prepared something for lunch. It’s not much.”

Kylo turned towards her; his eyes were red and swollen. “Thank you,” he said, getting on his feet and positioning the moth on his shoulder.

“What happened to the little guy?”

He exhaled, carding his hand through his hair. “I have no idea, probably the pupa got damaged somehow. Sometimes it just happens and you can’t do anything to prevent it. I–I feel powerless.”

Rey took his hand in hers then, and he squeezed back, his thumb caressing her knuckles.

“Is he in pain?” she asked, nodding in the moth’s direction.

“Not really, insects don’t process pain like mammals. But he can’t fly. In nature, he would never find a mate. He would die alone.”

“Oh, well, he’s not alone. We’ll help him,” she shrugged.

Kylo smiled sadly at her, his dimple showing again.

***

That evening Rey sent a message to the group chat she shared with the girls, warning them that she was going to bed earlier since she was so tired. After a very hot bath, she put a towel in the middle of her bed and extracted her dildo from its box again, lubing herself up.

“Let’s hope this time will do the trick,” she murmured, turning the vibration on the lowest setting for the moment.

Too many things had happened lately, and she forced her brain to shut off before finally caressing her clit with the tip of the toy. Her body was slower than usual to answer to the stimulation, taking a bit to warm up. She tried to imagine Kylo with her then, his body spooning her, his long, elegant fingers dipping between her folds instead of the tip of the toy, his plush lips whispering filth in her ear. Her cunt finally throbbed, clenching around one of the tips of the vibrator, and Rey turned her face into the cushion to stifle a single, tired moan.

Her orgasm was quite short in the end–just a couple of quick shocks across her belly–but it helped her drift off quickly and she remained asleep until her alarm rang at 6 am, right in the middle of a very interesting dream. Long, tapered fingers were caressing her whole body, making her shiver in pleasure. A fraction of a second before opening her eyes, still deeply entrenched in her dream, she caught a glimpse of velvety grey running over her skin instead of the pale, broad hands she usually imagined.

Flustered, Rey remained under the blankets until a quarter to 7, still chasing the last frames of her dream before she hastily washed her face and ran downstairs. Kylo was already there, frying eggs, with the moth perched on his shoulder. 

“Hey,” she said, smiling at him. 

He turned towards her straight away, showing his dimple. “Hey.”

“How’s the little guy?”

“Good. Yesterday he walked a lot all over my bed, then he slept. I think I’ll put him in a cage with a female today, to see if something happens.”

“Back to the moths then? I’ve been tired of being alone.”

This time he didn’t comment on what she said, but he combed his hair away from his face several times, sighing.

“You’re not alone,” he finally murmured shyly, his eyes glued on the table in front of him.

“Neither are you.”

They sat down to eat, with Little Guy still perched on Kylo’s shoulder.


	8. Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously, on Crimson Eyes:
> 
> Rey sees Kylo cry for the first time.  
> She starts having horny dreams.  
> Kylo is a bit more open with Rey.

The morning proceeded smoothly, but not uneventfully. Little Guy mated with a female of his species and a female of a different, but still related species for over an hour, and Kylo prepared a video about him. At one point, he asked Rey to retrieve a branch for the girls to lay eggs on, so she went downstairs to cut it. When she was about to return inside, a nice, new car arrived, stopping right in front of the gates, and a short, elegant, grey-haired woman stepped out of the vehicle, greeting her.

“Good morning,” she smiled warmly. “Is Ben home?”

Rey turned around, to ascertain that the stranger was, in fact, talking to her.

“Sorry, I’ll rephrase that” the woman huffed. “Is _Kylo_ home?”

“Yes, of course!” Rey squealed, clicking on the button to open the gate again.

“I’m Leia Organa, his mother,” she said, extending her hand. “And you must be Rey, the new _moth girl_.”

The woman’s name sounded familiar, and Rey wondered where she’d heard it before. She transferred the branch to her left hand, cleaning her palm on her T-shirt. “Nice to meet you as well.”

“Is that for feeding or for eggs?” Mrs. Organa asked, nodding towards the branch.

“For eggs, we already fed the caterpillars. Are you an entomologist as well?”

“No, I’m a senator,” she answered.

Rey blushed. That’s why she was familiar with the woman’s name, she was a fucking _senator._ Ben had already told her that his mother had renounced the family business for politics, but she’d forgotten that detail.

“Bring that branch upstairs, and tell my son to come down, I’ve brought some nice stuff for you to eat. It’s not easy to always be out here, alone in the middle of nowhere, without even a decent bakery.”

Rey ran up the stairs two at a time, announcing Leia’s arrival to Kylo. He flinched, trusting Little Guy into her now capable hands, and hurried downstairs. Rey put the branch in the cage with the females, secured Little Guy on her shoulder and followed him. Upon entering the kitchen, she discovered that Leia had, in fact, brought a ton of food. Her mouth watered as a whole Italian ham appeared, then a huge cream cake. Kylo was already neck-deep in the fridge, trying to make space for everything, and his mother was right behind him, her hands full of bread rolls.

“Let me take care of the groceries, Mrs. Organa, you’re a guest here,” Rey said.

Leia touched her forearm, as to thank her, smiling when she noticed Little Guy, still perched on Rey’s jumper.

“What do we have here? What happened?

Rey shrugged. “He came out of his chrysalis like this, we have no idea why.”

“I can keep him safe while you help Ben,” she said, picking the moth up in her hands.

Little Guy started moving his legs and his antennae frantically until Leia let him latch on her very nice and surely expensive cashmere turtleneck, petting his fuzzy back and his damaged wings with her index finger.

“It’s nice how you’re not afraid,” Rey blurted out.

“Oh well, to be honest I was really scared of insects while Ben was a child. But then, the cutest little moth helped me overcome my fears,” she said.

“Mother,” Kylo seethed, launching an icy glare towards Leia.

Rey had never heard so much hatred come from his voice, nor she had seen eyes so full of anger as his were in this moment. He almost looked like a completely different person, not the sweet, shy man that she got to know and love during the previous weeks. He was almost scary in his threatening rage, and Rey took a step back from him, as if she could escape his wrath hiding between the fridge and the table. Surprisingly, Leia simply shrugged, waving a hand nonchalantly in her direction.

“Let’s go Rey, take me to see the babies,” she huffed, exiting the kitchen.

Rey looked at Kylo, still standing in front of the fridge, his whole body trembling: his head was bowed down, and his hands clenched into fists. Ignoring the lump in her throat, she quickly followed Leia out of the kitchen.

***

Mrs. Organa’s visit proceeded uneventfully until late afternoon, when she announced that she had a date that evening. Right before dinner she embraced both her son and Rey, and then returned to her fancy apartment in town. The house felt emptier without her somehow, but Kylo looked more tired than usual. His behaviour towards his mother was puzzling to her, and she thought about asking him why he got so angry at the woman, in the morning–but maybe it wasn’t her place to judge him, since she never had a family.

Right before he could hole himself up in his room, Little Guy perched on his shoulder as usual, she blurted out a question that was burning on her tongue that morning.

“Y–your real name is _Ben,_ ” she whispered. “Isn’t it?”

Kylo turned his head, careful to not disturb Little Guy. His eyes weren’t as cold as when he’d chided his mother, but she still had difficulty detecting their usual warmth.

“It was,” he stated. “Now my name is Kylo.”

“But–”

“I would prefer it if you’d forget that name. Ben Solo doesn’t exist anymore,” he said.

“I–I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,” she blurted out, and he took her hand, squeezing it.

“You couldn’t have known. I’m sorry I snapped, that was uncalled for,” he admitted. “Rey, I know it’s boring staying alone here with me, take a day to have dinner with your friends next week or something like that. I can manage if you take a day off, and we’ll be both more relaxed afterwards.”

“I'm not bored,” she protested. “But I’ll think about it.”

He squeezed her hand for the last time before leaving her alone in the kitchen and going upstairs. Rey went into the orchard, but instead of calling the girls, she googled “Ben Solo.” When the results popped up–slowly, since she was entering the woods again–they definitely weren’t what she expected to find. Stomach in her throat, she began scrolling through a series of old articles, going back to when before she was even born, on what looked like the disappearance of a boy for six long months. 

Rey easily recognized a picture of a very young Kylo, all ears and dimples, and a young Leia, no more than 20-something years old and going by Mrs. Solo at the beginning of her political career. Apparently, Ben had disappeared in mid-March, while walking home from school. Leia and Han, Ben’s father, had called the police straight away, and an elderly witness had told them that someone in a huge black car had approached the child, and Ben had got into the vehicle without thinking about it twice. It was clear that he’d been kidnapped by someone he was already familiar with.

Walking slowly amongst the trees, Rey devoured all the articles. Some tried to be objective, while others were downright awful, accusing Leia of being a bad mother because she was a passionate politician instead of staying home and taking care of her son. Curiously, no one tried to accuse Han of neglect, not even though he was unemployed at the time, and he would’ve had time to retrieve his son from school instead of making him return home alone.

Rey’s heart constricted upon thinking how guilty Leia must have felt for those six months, with her child nowhere to be found, her marriage crumbling, and public opinion piling on her as a mother, a wife, and a politician. Luckily, little Ben returned home–apparently unscathed–during a cool September night. Leia pulled him from public school, and then they moved to another town since it was too difficult to avoid journalists and paparazzi. 

The police, despite working tirelessly on the case, never caught the kidnappers. There was a series of suspects and hypotheses, pointing mainly to one of Ben’s teachers–Mr. Snoke, his life sciences teacher. He owned a huge black car registered to First Order Pharmaceutics, a firm sadly known for practicing actual vivisection at the time. Rey googled “Professor Snoke First Order,” but the only news she found was about his death, twelve years ago.

Apparently, he’d had an accident: his car tumbled over the guardrail of a bridge. The police had conducted a small investigation since his body had been found outside of the car, on the shores of the river, horribly mauled and half-eaten by wild animals. They finally came to the conclusion that a large animal, maybe a wolf or a bear, had found the injured man while he tried to crawl from the upturned car, killing him and letting him to rot at the mercy of other wild beasts. 

Rey tried to google “Snoke mystery murder accident” as well, to see if she could find more articles about that, but her foot got caught in an upturned root. She fell right in the middle of the path, pain shooting straight through her ankle. 

“Fuck!” she cried, warm tears already pooling in her eyes.

She turned her flashlight on, inspecting her ankle, trying to move it a bit. It hurt, but it wasn’t broken, only a bit swollen: a light sprain, then. Nevertheless, she had to return home now, and walking on the uneven path would be extremely difficult in her condition. She tried to get on her feet, but her ankle didn’t want to cooperate, and she sat down again, hiding her face in her palms.

“Fuck,” she whispered. “I’m fuck–”

But right in that moment something, or better, _someone_ grabbed Rey’s arms from behind, making her jolt in fear, her heart almost exploding in her chest and her voice dying in her throat. Instead of crying, she turned around quickly and tried to punch whomever had dared to put their hands on her, but her direct hit was stopped by a soft, velvety grey hand: she found herself face to face with the Creature, his red eyes fixed on hers and a worried expression etched on his prominent brow.

“It’s–it’s you,” she murmured, lowering her fist and bringing her hand over her heart, now recovering from the scare.

Crimson Eyes started purring, and sniffed Rey’s right arm: her sleeve was ripped and there was blood dripping from a deep cut there, staining the fabric. When did she hurt herself like that? Falling? She’d been so scared that she didn’t even notice, but now her arm was throbbing in pain. Her T-shirt wasn’t really salvageable at this point, so she tore the sleeve, trying to bandage herself. The Creature stopped her then, taking the strip of fabric away and sniffing the wound again. Now that Rey was calmer, she could detect his familiar scent, maybe a bit subdued by the blooming trees around them, but soothing to her senses nonetheless.

“What are you–hey!” she protested, as a long black tongue emerged from his mouth and began licking at her arm, right over the cut.

He started with the tip first, then he became bolder, coating more of her upper arm with a thick, transparent liquid. Rey should have found the situation disgusting, but it was disturbingly fascinating. That tongue was a wonder in itself, muscled, thick and moving almost like a tentacle, tickling her slightly with its sleek saliva. The bleeding soon stopped, and the wound closed itself under the Creature’s attentive care, leaving her speechless. She felt better, the tension that accumulated in her body after the fall abandoned her. He nosed at her again, on her arm, under her armpit, in the crook of her neck, making her shiver and wonder what he was trying to tell her with those gestures. 

She tried to nose him back, but he kept moving, so, mindful of his claws, she took his hands in hers. They were huge, and warm, and touching them was almost like touching a peach. Only his palms and the underside of his fingers were smooth, so smooth than the only thing Rey could think about as she caressed them was silk–she’d thought the same thing upon seeing his hair for the first time. 

“Will you stop sniffing at me now?” Rey asked then, and he buried his face between her neck and her hair, like there was something particularly attractive to him there. 

She squeezed his hands again then, but her gaze was caught by his claws, leaving a reddish smear on her palms. Was that blood? Had he been the one to wound her, when she’d jolted between his arms? Rey’s heart started beating wildly again, and her hands began shaking.

“I need to go back,” Rey whined then, and the Creature emerged from her neck, looking at her.

“I need to return home,” she repeated as he blinked at her.

Those eyes were incredible, but she needed to leave as soon as possible.

“I _want_ to go home,” she whispered again, and something finally clicked.

He picked her up as if she weighed nothing, and in a heartbeat, they were airborne, the tree tops now several feet beneath them, almost black in the dying light of the evening. Rey clinged to Crimson Eyes’ neck as he flew, her fingers burrowing in the luxurious dark fur that covered the upper part of his chest. Now that they weren’t in the woods anymore, his incredible smell was stronger. Rey closed her eyes as he brought her back home, the air sliding over his wings with an almost unperceivable whistle, the beating of her own heart only surpassed by the loud, calming drum of his purr.

The Creature left her in front of the gates, after she was more or less steady on her injured ankle. She tried to stop him this time, extending her hand towards him, but he leapt towards the sky in a heartbeat, leaving her behind. Alone. She opened the gates with shaky hands, her eyes never leaving the darkening sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @Kupo_solidago made beautiful art for this chapter <3 Thank you so much, I can't stop looking at it!


	9. Deceit and Despair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously, on Crimson Eyes:
> 
> Little Guy fucks.  
> Leia likes to pop up unannounced.  
> Kylo Ren’s real name is Ben Solo.  
> Something terrible happened to him when he was little.  
> Crimson Eyes doesn’t want to harm Rey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to thank again the wonderful [MissCoppelia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissCoppelia/pseuds/MissCoppelia) for being the best beta a writer could desire <3

The following day, Rey told Ben she’d sprained her ankle in the orchard while texting her friends, showing him the bandage she’d applied the previous evening after Crimson Eyes had brought her home. Obviously, she didn’t mention the creature or that she fell while reading old articles about his kidnapping on the Internet.

“Does it hurt? Let me see if I have some ointment,” he said, abandoning his sandwich on the picnic blanket, and getting to his feet.

“It’s mostly okay now. I put some ice on it yesterday.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to take a break? You’ve been walking around all morning. I can tend to the moths on my own this afternoon.”

The sun came out from a cloud, its rays making Rey squint. “There is no need,” she said, rolling her sleeves up. “It doesn’t even hurt that much.”

Kylo’s gaze ended, predictably, on her brand new scar. She’d taken a good look at it before going to sleep. It was somehow different from all the scars she’d collected over the years: it was thinner, and the new tissue was dark and sunken, instead of light and slightly raised from the surrounding skin. But the most curious thing about the scar was its shape: it looked like two tiny hands reaching for each other. And to be honest, she didn’t mind it at all–it was still better than her scraped-up knees and elbows. Those were horrible to look at.

“T–that scar wasn’t there last week,” he commented.

“Oh, I got it yesterday as well,” she chuckled. “Fell on a branch.”

“Are you sure of that?” Kylo pressed, fidgeting with his hands. “It looks deep, and... quite old already.”

It looked like he was becoming antsy, his chest heaving. Rey prayed he wasn’t going to panic over that. It would be silly. An overreaction.

“Of course,” she answered, shrugging.

“That  _ really _ doesn’t look like a scar left by a branch,” he continued, making it clear that he  _ knew _ she was lying somehow.

Rey became defensive.

“Listen, I don’t remember how I got injured. I fell down, came back, went to sleep, and this morning I was already feeling better. I see no problem here, I’ve been through some serious shit in my life, and a sprained ankle coupled with a small scar is nothing.”

Kylo brought a hand to his forehead, mumbling something Rey couldn’t catch, his mouth puffing out repeatedly. She waited for him to do something with a belated breath, her gaze fixed on him, ready to fight if necessary. He looked unsettled, agitated, like her injury was a bigger deal than it was. Did he  _ know _ about Crimson Eyes? Was he afraid of him?

“I’m taking you to your friend’s house. Pack–pack your bags,” he mumbled, almost trembling, turning towards the house.

“What! No!” Rey cried, her stomach plummeting at the thought that he was firing her, that he didn’t want her to work with him anymore.

The reasoning behind his decision escaped her, and she felt herself become sweaty, her armpits prickling uncomfortably and her heart beating erratically, as if it intended to crawl up her throat.

“I’ll pay you for the whole week,” he insisted, his voice firmer and his tone more serious than ever.

Rey yelled, red-faced, her heart threatening to explode. “It’s not that! You can’t send me away like this!”

“Of course I can, I’m your boss!” he yelled back, shrugging almost theatrically. 

She ran in front of him, stopping him on his tracks, her eyes filled with tears. “Are you firing me, Kylo Ren?”

He opened his mouth in shock, as she’d just insulted him. His eyes became unfocused. Was he panicking?

“O–of course not! I’m giving you a break.”

“Why can’t I take my break here, then?” Rey yelled, the tip of her nose almost touching his.

Their closeness made his left eye twitch. “Because you would still try to work! You got hurt, you’re taking two days off at least. In a civilized place! Not here, in the middle of nowhere.”

Rey’s tears finally spilled from her eyes, the tension leaving her body. He wasn’t firing her, but she still hated him for how he was treating her. He made her feel stupid, and reckless, and unreasonable. She dried her face, and forced herself to hold the tears back. She wasn’t a child anymore.

“Then I’ll go alone. I don’t need a chaperone.”

“Better if you don’t drive with a sprained ankle,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

Rey shrugged him off and went upstairs, her heart filled with anger. Towards herself, towards him, towards the whole situation. She‘d forgotten about the scar, but he’d seen it, and now he was being as unreasonable as when his mother had come to visit. She threw some panties and T-shirts in her backpack, washed her face, and returned downstairs to retrieve the keys hanging in the kitchen, only to discover he’d already taken them. He was waiting for her in front of the gates, the old Ford Falcon already running, his brow furrowed.

Rey had promised herself to not cry in front of him again, but once she sat in the car, Kylo gave her a worried look and that was all it took for her to start bawling her eyes out again. She hated how vulnerable he was making her feel.

“Rey,” he said then, “please, don’t cry. You’re really making me feel like a monster.”

“Just like you said you were,” she spat, looking outside of the window.

“That’s not what I meant. I’m only worried for you. We–we’re alone in an old hotel in the middle of nowhere, for fuck’s sake, and you work every day without interruption. I’m only asking you to rest, and call me when you’ll feel better, I’ll pick you up.”

Rey grunted, still deeply unsettled. She messaged Rose straight away, to tell her that she needed their hospitality for a couple of days.

***

Rose’s sofa was extremely uncomfortable after so many nights on a brand new mattress. But her friends started pampering her like a princess from the moment Kylo left her at their house, happy to have her back home, even for just a couple of days. They ordered takeout from their favourite Chinese restaurant and spent the evening watching  _ The Shape Of Water, _ eating and drinking beer on the sofa. Rey wasn’t even hungry–that was a first–but she didn’t want to tell her friends about her fight with Kylo, so she fell into her old habit of enduring the girls’ boisterous presence.

“I missed this,” she murmured while playing with a dumpling, hoping her appetite would come back before the end of the movie.

“No movies with Kylo?” Jannah inquired. 

“Nope. He goes to sleep at half past seven. Eight maybe. Every fucking evening.”

“That’s lame…” Kaydel huffed. “And infuriating! You can’t make your move if he keeps behaving like a grandpa.”

“The fact that you’ve lived with him for almost a month and he hasn’t dicked you down yet is almost criminal,” Rose said, sipping her beer. “But I’m sure that it will be amazing when he’ll finally overcome his shyness.”

Rey snickered, still thinking about their fight in the morning. Should she reveal to Rose that Kylo’s problems stemmed from something way darker than simple awkwardness? That his whole childhood had been tainted by his kidnapping? It wasn’t her place, so she simply nodded, shrugging.

“I can wait. You know I’m a pro at waiting.”

Soon, the movie ended, and Rey made herself at home on the old sofa without even removing her clothes or washing her teeth, her mind still running back to her boss, and to Crimson Eyes. She forced herself to close her eyes, and the alcohol she’d drank on an almost empty stomach knocked her out quickly.

Her dreams brought the Creature to her. She was in a bed she’d never seen, larger than the sofa but smaller than the one she used at Kylo’s, and he entered through a window, his black wings folding awkwardly to fit the wooden frame. He extended an arm, giving her what looked like an egg, but when she took it, it broke, leaving her hand covered in honey instead of yolk.

Rey tried to talk to him, but he didn’t understand her words. She started yelling at him, but he kept shaking his head until his face morphed into Kylo’s face, and then he was able to speak. Suddenly, she became deaf, making it impossible to understand what he was saying. When she woke up, still in the middle of the night, she was drenched in sweat, and something hard was poking at her hip. 

She fumbled through the blankets, finding her keys. Upon closer inspection, she realized that they were Kylo’s: the mysterious extra key missing from her own bundle was there. Fishing her phone out from under the cushion, she wrote to him, still half asleep.

**_Looks like I have your keys_ **

Rey didn’t wait for him to answer, and removed her jeans, falling asleep again in a few minutes. She dreamt of having the best nap of her life in a soft, perfumed cocoon, the Creature’s scent surrounding her like a shield. When Jannah and Kaydel left the house around 7 am, she woke up again and looked at her phone. Kylo had answered her.

**_Hey!_ **

**_Yes, my fault._ **

**_They were in the same pocket, I noticed too late… I was already home._ **

**_How are you? I hope you slept well._ **

  
  


**_I’m fine._ **

  
  


She put the phone away, her heart beating too fast to be able to fall asleep again.


	10. The Dovecote

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously, on Crimson Eyes:
> 
> Kylo suspects that Rey met Crimson Eyes.  
> He’s so worried about her that he forces a small vacation on her.  
> Rey misses her friends but she misses working with Kylo more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Go check [MissCoppelia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissCoppelia/pseuds/MissCoppelia)'s fics, she's the best beta and a great author too! <3

The following day, Rose managed to take a day off from work to spend time with Rey. After several generous applications of ice and ointment on her ankle, Rey could finally walk without any problems: they had lunch at their favourite sushi place and went wandering through the shops for the whole afternoon. Rey refused to buy anything since she had nowhere to go in the evenings and didn’t need any “new” things, until they reached a thrift shop where she found a lovely lace nightgown straight from the Seventies. 

After Rose joked that it would be amazing to take selfies in Kylo’s orchard–no pun intended–Rey decided to buy it. If her mind traveled directly to a very unorthodox vision of her employer caressing her thighs through the lace, making her blush wildly, she didn’t mention it to her friend.

Outside of the shop, Rey removed her jacket to put it in the bag with the nightgown, and Kylo’s keys fell from a pocket. Rose picked them up, squinting at them.

“What’s that key for? It looks like it could open a strongbox. We had one at my parents’ place.”

“I have no idea,” Rey answered. “I never asked him, to be honest.”

“Aren’t you curious?”

Rey smiled. “A bit. But maybe it’s his mother’s key or something like that. If it opened something in the house, he would have told me for sure.”

“What if he didn’t tell you? What if he’s hiding something huge? I wouldn’t have been able to resist all those weeks without snooping around.”

Rey extended her hand, and Rose gave her the keys back. She mulled over all the strange things that kept happening at Kylo’s; the mysterious, winged Creature roaming around by night, Ben Solo’s kidnapping... Rey decided right then and there that there was nothing wrong with poking her nose around a bit. After all, Kylo was keeping several things from her. He hadn’t outright lied to her so far, but there were many, many things he never told her, not even now that they were a bit closer.

“You know what? You’re right,” she told Rose. “I’ll make a copy.”

***

Kylo came to pick her up the following morning, and she didn’t even say  _ hello _ to him, getting in the Falcon and distracting herself with the flat, monotonous landscape, sighing dramatically from time to time–hoping to catch his attention.

“I’m sorry, Rey,” he finally said, interrupting the silence. “I overreacted the other day.”

“Yes, you did,” Rey quickly spat back. “You may be my boss, but I really don’t like to be told what to do.”

Luckily, Kylo kept his mouth shut: Rey appreciated the fact that he didn’t try to sell her another weak excuse. But then again, she felt sorry for having lashed out at him like that. No normal employer would have let her speak to them like that.

“How’s Little Guy?” She asked, trying to ease the tension a little.

Kylo puffed his cheeks. “He’s doing okay, he’s a bit slower now. These will be his last few days.”

“Will you pin him? When the time comes.”

He nodded. “But I won’t sell him. I’ll keep him with me.”

“Good,” Rey said, trying to stretch on the car seat. 

Trying to sleep on Rose’s sofa had been harder than she’d remembered. She tried to make her back pop, but the position wasn’t good, and her knees kicked the dashboard in front of her.

“Your keys are in the drawer,” Kylo said then, making Rey’s heartbeat speed up. “Take them before we forget again.”

The key she’d made a copy of was currently well hidden, burning a hole in her pocket. With trembling hands, she opened the drawer of the old car, exchanging her bundle of keys for Kylo’s.

She took a deep breath then. “What’s the long key for?”

“Which one?”

“The one that’s in your bundle but not in mine,” she explained, her fingers buried deep in her pocket, caressing her own copy.

“That’s the key to the dovecote. Never go up there.”

Rey counted to ten before reminding him that she hated being told what to do.

“Why shouldn’t I, pray tell?”

“It–it’s rickety.”

“Why does it need that kind of key, if it’s rickety?”

“I–I have no idea. It was already there,” he shrugged. “Maybe my grandparents used it to store something of value. Now it’s just bare walls and bird poop. No need to go in there.”

Rey looked at him, an eyebrow raised. He was gulping silently, his eyes fixed on the road. 

_ He was lying. _

***

Rey resisted for a few hours before making a mad dash to the dovecote. She’d never visited the northern wing of the building, and she decided to take a quick stroll right after Kylo had holed himself up in his studio to finally edit Little Guy’s video. Right in the middle of the northern corridor, she found an unlocked wooden door, and behind said door, a small spiral staircase leading upstairs. Kylo told her that the dovecote was abandoned and dirty, but she found the stairs quite spotless–maybe even cleaner than her own room. She knew that Kylo cleaned the house often, but why bother cleaning a staircase leading to a rickety part of the building?

Rey inhaled, her heart pounding by now. She went up then, finding a reinforced door–it looked quite new, like it was installed recently, maybe ten or fifteen years ago, but surely not sixty, as he’d told her. Hands trembling, she fished the key from her pocket, and slowly inserted it into the lock. It was so well oiled that it opened without a noise, finally permitting her to enter the infamous dovecote. 

Her mouth hung open upon finally seeing what Kylo was hiding there. There were no crumbling walls, no bird poop at all. Instead, there was a fucking _ bedroom _ in there, equipped with a king-sized mattress set on the floor, complete with sheets and cushions, a bedside table, and a chair. Why? What was the purpose of having a bedroom here? Did he use it to sleep? Did he use it to unleash his secret perversions? Why lie to her like that, saying that it was abandoned and dangerous? Rey closed the door quickly, returning hastily to her room and hiding the key in the hamper in her bathroom, hoping that he would not try to snoop around in her rooms. She waited for her heartbeat to calm down, and returned to the turret to tend to the moths.

That evening at dinner, Rey observed Kylo carefully. He seemed more at ease somehow, despite having blatantly lied to her. He was again the intelligent, witty man she’d fallen in love with, and she wouldn’t have asked for anything different if only she’d hadn’t gone to the dovecote. Now, she wasn’t sure she could trust him anymore, after having been in his secret room. Rey excused herself, leaving while Kylo was still eating, complaining about a migraine.

***

Rey’s first week after the accident proceeded uneventfully. She kept mainly to herself, avoiding the woods, avoiding the dovecote, and avoiding Kylo whenever possible. Luckily he was quite busy again with pinning moths and his Youtube channel, so minding her own business wasn’t too difficult. But one morning she didn’t find him at breakfast–it looked like no one had entered the kitchen since the previous evening–and she got worried. Returning upstairs to check on him, she found him in his bedroom, sitting on the ground, a now motionless Little Guy lying on his palm.

“Is he dead?” Rey asked him.

Kylo nodded, lifting his gaze to her, his eyes red. He’d been crying.

Rey sat down next to him, and put a hand on his back, patting it. Even if he’d lied to her, even if he was hiding something in that dovecote, she could understand his pain. Kylo exhaled then, his hand closing delicately around the moth, before he put his left arm around her shoulder, answering her with a goofy, one-armed hug. Rey would have been over the moon to receive such a display of affection only a week ago.

That night she tried to masturbate without thinking of him, unsuccessfully. Only flashes of his hands on her skin, of his long fingers inside of her were able to bring her over the edge, her vibrator filling her holes and her fingertips drumming on her clit. She needed to learn how to hate him better.


	11. In a Nightmare, In a Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously, on Crimson Eyes:
> 
> Rey doesn’t really like shopping.  
> Rose is very curious too.  
> Kylo Ren lies to Rey about the mysterious key.  
> Rey snoops into the dovecote and finds things she doesn’t like at all.  
> Little Guy kicked the bucket! RIP

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: This chapter contains the only extreme dubcon scene of this fic, if you’re uncomfortable with that, please stop reading at “The Creature started purring loudly” and/or jump to the endnotes for a summary.

In the following days, Kylo pinned Little Guy and hanged the frame up in the huge living room that no one used, right under the windowed turret. Rey kept working hard every day, but she also tried to distance herself from her employer. Cluelessly, he tried to initiate contact with her–of his own volition, to her surprise–a couple of times. But she dismissed him quickly, telling him that she had something urgent to do, or she needed to call her friends. If Kylo was upset by that, he never showed it–and she tried to not care about that either.

But Kylo’s secrets weren’t the only thing bothering Rey. Ever since she came back, s he noticed that something was off every evening during her usual strolls in the orchard. For the first time since she’d begun working for Kylo, she felt strange while being outside after dusk, like she was finally…  _ alone.  _ She couldn’t find other words to describe that new, unsettling sensation. There was something  _ wrong _ in the air. There was something  _ missing. _

One evening almost two weeks since her return, Rey’s feet carried her far from the orchard, towards the outskirts of the woods. She looked intently at the trail she now knew by heart, disappearing between an entanglement of branches, bark, and leaves -as if the darkness there could somehow answer all her questions. What had  _ changed _ while she’d been away? Why was she feeling so lonely now? No one answered her: the woods were completely silent. Then something clicked: Crimson Eyes wasn’t there anymore. Rey couldn’t feel him, she couldn’t feel his watchful gaze on her, she couldn’t feel the familiar sensation of being looked upon, of being  _ safe. _ The thought accompanied her for the rest of the evening, making her restless. 

The weather was warmer now, and despite a refreshing bath, she laid on her bed, tossing and turning between the sheets, her lace nightgown now moist with sweat. Chasing sleep, she eventually decided to take a stroll inside the house, to see if she could finally tire herself out. It was almost 3 am when Rey began wandering the empty corridors; her feet quickly brought her to Kylo’s room. She rested her ear on the door, trying to understand if he was actually sleeping or doing something else. 

There was nothing coming from that room, not even sounds of breathing. She stopped herself for a moment, worried that she would upset him, but remembering how annoyed she was with him, she just knocked, his insomnia be damned. No one answered. Rey remembered that he’d talked about sleeping with earplugs, so she tried to open the door, but it was locked from the inside. Was he so paranoid that he couldn’t go to sleep without completely barricading himself in his room?

Rey turned left, and kept walking. While she traversed the eastern corridor, her senses were hit by the familiar, soothing smell she’d always noticed when Crimson Eyes was nearby. Was the Creature in the house then? She concentrated, but she still couldn’t feel his presence. Growing agitated, she ran until she reached the middle of the northern corridor, right where the staircase bringing to the dovecote was located. Here the smell was stronger, and somehow she could feel a presence behind the bolted door–his presence. Crimson Eyes was up there, but something was  _ wrong _ with him _.  _

Rey ran to her bedroom, taking the western wing–avoiding Kylo’s corner of the house–her heart in her throat now. She entered her room, hands trembling, and retrieved the key she’d kept hidden in the hamper, returning swiftly to the dovecote. It took her a couple of tries to finally open the reinforced steel door leading to the hidden bedroom, but when she finally succeeded, the scene in front of her left her almost dizzy–as did the overpowering scent filling the small space. 

The room was dimly lit, the feeble rays of the moon penetrating through the numerous openings in the upper part of the walls were the only source of light. Crimson Eyes was there, spread out on the mattress, something looking like a chain securing his imposing form to the wall right behind the makeshift bed. Kylo Ren had captured him, and Rey’s heart broke on the spot. How could someone trap such a beautiful, fierce being, locking him up in a room that was nothing more than a cell?

The Creature started purring loudly when Rey entered the room, and she couldn’t help running to him, kneeling on the mattress, her hands already caressing his grey, streaked cheeks.

“What did he do to you?” she whispered upon noticing that there was a metal collar around his neck, effectively making it impossible for him to escape.

Crimson Eyes of course didn’t answer her, but he started nosing at her hair, like the last time they met, when he’d sniffed her all over. Rey pushed him away, trying to rip the collar from his neck, but she couldn’t do much with her bare hands. There was a huge locket securing the collar to the heavy, hanging chain: she knew how to pick a lock, but she needed a couple of pointy tools for that, and she wasn’t sure she could find them without waking up Kylo Ren. Unfortunately, she never got the hang of hairpins–the only thing she had on her, besides her lace nightgown, was a hair tie made of recycled old stockings. 

“Listen,” she started. “I need to retrieve some tools to free you, but I can’t do that until tomorrow, or the day after even. You need to be strong and resist, I will try to bring you something to eat while you’re here, okay?” 

The Creature closed his eyes, burying his face in the crook of Rey’s neck, loudly inhaling her scent, his own smell making her unfocused. She barely registered the fact that she was almost in his lap now. She’d been kneeling on the border of the mattress only a handful of seconds before. How had she moved there? She couldn’t remember. 

She shivered upon feeling his fingers kneading the back of her thighs and his breath on her bare skin, and he promptly closed his wings around her.

“I’m not cold,” she whispered. “Can you understand what I’m saying? I can’t free you now.”

Crimson Eyes kept nuzzling her neck, right over her tendons, where her skin was warmer and softer. Rey tried to push him away again, but he was insistent, and stronger than her, so she soon found herself pinned in the middle of the mattress, his warm body moving over her. He licked his lips with his long, black tongue, and her eyes focused on his dark, plush mouth, right in front of hers. Was he going to kiss her? Would she be repulsed by kissing a monster? Was this even real?

“I–I don’t know,” she said out loud, and Crimson Eyes dove for her neck again, his soft lips finally caressing her tender skin here. 

The sensation was maddening. Rey closed her eyes then, the loss of her sight heightening momentarily her other senses: she arched her back as he slowly started to nibble on her tendons, his pointy canines tickling her, causing goosebumps to erupt across her limbs. His teeth became more insistent in their explorations, and when Rey opened her eyes again, she found herself on her stomach, her cheek resting on the mattress, the Creature's teeth breaking the skin of her nape. If it was painful or nice, she was honestly too dizzy to tell. 

It was like her whole body burned up from the insides, thrumming and pulsing as something hard and wet began poking her backside, moisture spreading all over her ass and thighs. Was she in danger? Should she escape? Should she try to get away from the Creature? 

“I don’t think so,” she muttered, as Crimson Eyes lifted her nightgown, the delicate, white lace almost grotesque in his dark, clawed hand.

The cool air of the room hit Rey’s wet skin, her drenched labia, her exposed ass, making her shiver again. She tried to turn her head to check what he was doing, but she couldn’t see anything past his fist, wrapped around the hem of her nightgown, resting on the mattress right beside her cheek. She could still feel something wet and hard slide between her legs, seeking entrance, failing, pushing again against her, and failing a second time. She began grinding on the mattress, seeking friction, but Crimson Eyes lifted her to put her on her back, and the room started spinning another time. She had to close her eyes again.

He took hold of her thighs, spreading them until she found herself folded in two, her knees now almost resting against her breasts. There was a steady, slow drip on her abdomen, and soon the attack began again, the Creature sliding his erection against her sopping folds, seeking an entrance. Finally, he found the right angle, penetrating her, and she couldn’t help opening her eyes again, her back arching from the mattress. His impossibly red orbs were fixed on her face, his gaze glued on her eyes, his mouth open in amazement, like they were doing something inconceivable, something  _ impossible _ to even think about.

“Really?” Rey murmured, her cunt already clenching around him, her body behaving like she was touch starved again, like during her youth.

She felt herself almost impaled beneath him, her inner walls quickly giving in to the invasion, the fluids dripping from him making everything possible, everything sleek, everything mind-melting. When he bottomed out, she let a silent moan escape her lips, and he finally let himself fall over her, hooking her knees over his shoulders, the coarse hair on his back tickling her feet. He started to push slowly against her, his face hidden in the crook of her neck, inhaling the scent of her sweat and her arousal. There was no way this could be real, and she let her body decide for her, like in one of her fantasies.

She let Crimson Eyes fuck her like this, his rumbling purr and the rustling of his chains the only noises in the shadowy penumbra of the dovecote. His enormous body was everywhere, inside and outside of her at the same time, keeping her warm and safe, filling her to the brim. She kept her eyes closed, holding onto his broad shoulders, her fingers seeking purchase against his velvety skin, between his soft, silky hair.

Mating with him felt like making love with someone that had never made love before. Their union was rabid, wet, shocking, and yet surprisingly tender as the monster never averted his eyes from hers, his long, soft lashes casting shades against his pointy cheekbones, their noses bumping from time to time. As he fucked her, his lips opened in wonder–so close to hers, yet so far. Rey lost track of the time passing, losing herself in his scent, his warmth, his eagerness to fill her up as much as he could, her body answering to his in a way that had never happened before. It was like being in a dream. 

Maybe she really was dreaming. And if she was in a dream, there was no reason to hold back. She tried to kiss him, her right hand burrowing in his silky hair, her mouth crushing against his soft, dark lips. He made a sound this time, a dull, nasal sound of surprise, interrupting his purr, and stilled above her. His cock began swelling then, stretching her even more than before, an uncomfortable flash of pain shooting through her womb: she’d never felt anything similar in her life. She blinked. 

She blinked and she found herself pinned under him, trapped, speared by his cock, now somehow bigger, somehow uncomfortable, somehow too much.

“What the hell am I doing?” she whispered, aghast. 

Crimson Eyes blinked and moved, sitting on his haunches and freeing her legs, but it wasn’t enough, and she squirmed under him. He promptly disengaged from her, tugging painfully until his cock slid outside of her cunt with a squelching sound, leaving a generous amount of sticky fluids in its wake. She was empty now, and it ached.

Rey scrambled on the mattress, sitting down, a complete mess of sweat and whatever substance the Creature had pumped inside of her. Her nightgown was drenched, her folds throbbing in something that should have been pain, but that was actually something she didn’t want to name. Her head was spinning: his scent was still strong, but less enticing now. She almost felt nauseous. 

Rey slowly stood up, knees trembling, the cool air of the room hitting her wet nightgown, making the whole situation even more uncomfortable. Seeing her shivering, Crimson Eyes emitted again that sad, nasal lament he’d emitted when she’d tried to kiss him, catching her attention. He was slumped against the cushions, his chest heaving, his red, red eyes wide open. He looked at her, almost frightened by her reaction, by what had just happened between the two of them. His cock wasn’t hard anymore; it lay slumped across his thigh, its vermilion colour contrasting with the deep grey of his skin. Her heart in her throat, Rey averted her gaze.

“I–I’ll go now,” she murmured, leaving the room without looking back. 

Behind her, only the rattle of his chains. She bolted the door, hurrying to her bedroom, the wetness still running down her slick thighs. Once inside, she threw herself on the bed, sighing. Her cunt was still throbbing after what had happened–she tried not to think about it–but soon her fingers sneaked between her legs, finding her clit still hard, still wanting from before. She circled the nub slowly, his red eyes the only thing in her mind.

“What the fuck is wrong with me,” Rey seethed, her chest heaving and her fingers finally pushing her over the edge.

It was almost dawn when she finally fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SPOILERS: 
> 
> If you don’t feel comfortable reading the dubcon scene, here’s what happens: Rey finds Crimson Eyes chained up in the dovecote, and she tries to free him, to no avail. He’s way more interested in her than in freedom, and he starts touching her. She answers, he scents her, and he finally bites her behind her neck, making her putty in his arms. Between her attraction to him and his pheromones, she starts questioning what’s happening, and is convinced it’s a dream, she simply lets him mate with her until he starts to knot her. Then she comes back to herself and returns to her room, but she’s not disgusted by what happened, and she eventually ends up masturbating in her bed.


	12. Captivity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously, on Crimson Eyes:
> 
> Rey is worried about Crimson Eyes' absence and she looks for him.  
> He’s in the dovecote, chained to a wall.  
> Rey thinks Kylo is the one behind Crimson Eyes’ captivity.  
> Somehow, sex happens.  
> Rey is scared and horny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the support <3

When Rey woke up with a jolt her phone was dead, but the sun was already high in the sky–it was definitely past noon. Her head was pounding. Not only was her head pounding, but she had sex with Crimson Eyes. Sighing, she got on her feet, forcing herself to think about other things.

Removing her still sticky nightgown, she threw it in the bathtub, and after putting on an old T-shirt and some jeans that needed washing too, she ran downstairs. Kylo was nowhere to be seen, but there was a covered plate on the table with a post-it note on it.

Rey,

I hope you’re okay! I tried to wake you up this morning, 

but you didn’t hear me knocking on your door, and your phone was turned off.

I’ve left some chicken for you, take all the time you need. 

K.

  
  


Rey felt ravenous, eating the chicken without even warming it up before she returned upstairs to check on the caterpillars. Kylo had already given them new leaves to munch on, so she knocked on the door of his studio. Instead of barging in, as usual, she patiently waited for him to answer. Upon opening the door, he smiled warmly at her, his dimple making an appearance. He looked quite tired, like he hadn’t slept either. She bit back her concern–he wasn’t a good person, she should stop worrying about him.

“Hey,” he asked. “Are you okay?”

He was wearing some kind of parody T-shirt, with a red-eyed Mothman coming out of a Pokéball and the  _ “Gotta catch ‘em all” _ motto, and she almost snorted at the irony of the situation, since he’d exactly done the same thing to Crimson Eyes.

“Not really,” Rey admitted, avoiding his eyes. “I–I’m not okay.”

“Did you catch a cold?” he asked, worried, covering her forehead with the palm of his hand.

Once, she would have basked under his touch, but now? Now she didn’t want his hands on her, so she quickly turned away, pushing his hand off as the Sphingidae did to her when she tried to approach them, extending her arm against him.

“I don’t know. Maybe I have allergies.”

“Could be,” he said. “Your neck is all red, did you scratch it?”

Shit. She’d forgotten about the Creature’s bite. She nodded, turning back to him.

“Where did you go last night?” he asked.

Rey paled. “I–I remained in my room. Why?”

“Nothing,” he shrugged. “Maybe you touched something strange, that’s all. Listen, don’t worry about today. There isn’t much to do. Try to rest, okay?”

Rey nodded, leaving Kylo to his videos, and returned to her room. She changed the bedding, took a quick shower–washing her nightgown as well–then returned downstairs to put in a load of laundry; there was already a sheet hanging to dry, and she mulled over using the drying machine for her things instead. After the washing machine started its cycle, she retrieved a bottle of water, a mug, a spoon, and a jar of honey from the pantry as well, since she’d promised the Creature some food. She had no idea what he was used to eating, but all the Sphingidae went crazy for that honey. 

After making sure that Kylo was still busy in his studio, she snuck toward the dovecote bringing the honey and some water with her. Her steps, usually quiet, sounded absurdly loud to her ears, and the key’s creaking echoed in the emptiness of the northern corridors. Her heartbeat sped up, and she worried that Kylo could hear her somehow. 

“Hey,” she whispered while closing the door. “It’s me, Re–”

The room was empty, save for the chains and the furniture–but the sheet was missing. Rey’s heart sank. She could still sense the Creature’s faint smell, but he wasn’t there anymore. Holding back her tears was impossible.

“Where are you?” she murmured, “What did he do to you?”

Frantic, Rey returned to her room, throwing herself on the bed. She’d been so, so wrong about Kylo! Her mind raced to what had happened with Little Guy, to Kylo crying upon seeing the little deformed moth trying to stretch his wings and fail, to taking care of him almost obsessively, to the point of making him live on his shoulder. Had that been a complete ruse? 

She felt useless for having slept for the whole morning. She felt powerless, finally realizing that maybe Kylo was really the monster he’d said he was and his incongruous behaviour was the final proof of that: he could be a loving parent to his moths, and both a jailer and a torturer for that wonderful moth-like creature. She’d been so stupid to fall for him, thinking that he was just shy, that he was just traumatized by what had happened during his childhood. She needed to do something as soon as possible. Drying her tears, she promptly texted him, telling him that she needed to sleep and to not wait for her to eat dinner.

Rey texted Rose as well, and after washing her face, she felt a bit better, her head clearer. She needed to rest again, but at the same time, she didn’t have any time to lose: she had to find out what had happened to the Creature. She’d face Kylo Ren, if necessary. She sat at her desk, a piece of paper and the picture of her friends in front of her. 

What did she know at the moment? Crimson Eyes had been chained in the dovecote during the night, but now the makeshift prison was empty.

“Okay,” she said to herself. “Worst case scenario. Worst case scenario, Kylo captured Crimson Eyes while I was at Rose’s, to do experiments on him.” 

The thought almost made her vomit on the spot. She gulped down the water she’d brought from the kitchen, hoping to ease her nausea. Her tears threatened to spill over again, but she tried to concentrate on the list, breathing deeply.

“That would imply that Kylo took him somewhere else this morning,” she murmured, scribbling on the piece of paper. “Where? What did he do to him? If he’s still alive, is Kylo going to chain him up again in the dovecote tonight?”

The sheet was already full of question marks. Rey continued.

“A slightly better worst case scenario. Kylo captured Crimson Eyes and killed him this morning.”

The idea was equally chilling, but at least it didn’t imply vivisection. Rey needed to wait for Kylo to go to sleep and return to the dovecote to verify that. She tried to think about another point for her list, but nothing really made sense about why the Creature would be in the dovecote by night and not by day. But now that she thought about it, she’d never seen Crimson Eyes during the day. What if he was strictly nocturnal, like certain moths? What if he’d returned to the woods to sleep?

That didn’t really make sense: it would imply a certain grade of complicity on the being’s part, like he actually  _ wanted _ to be chained up in the dovecote at night.

“Okay,” she murmured, turning over the piece of paper. “Best case scenario number one. Kylo captured Crimson Eyes, but he freed himself this morning, after I left the dovecote.”

Her employer had looked perfectly normal to her earlier. Maybe he had no idea that the Creature had freed himself? Rey exhaled, hiding her face in her palms. All the options sounded equally ridiculous, now that she had put them on paper. The only thing that she knew for sure was that Kylo Ren was a monster; she’d have to wait to know the rest of the story.

She threw herself into bed. The sheets were clean, but she could still detect a faint smell that reminded her of last night. Sighing, she hugged a cushion, quickly falling asleep.

***

Legs trembling, Rey returned to the dovecote around midnight, after checking if Kylo was asleep. She didn’t know what she expected to find there, so she brought her backpack with her, containing a med-kit and all the equipment to prepare the solution of water and honey to give to the Creature. Despite being quite sure that Crimson Eyes was around–the northern corridor smelled of him again–her hands shook so much that she had to try several times to open the lock, her heart skipping several beats. After finally opening the door and seeing that he was there again, seemingly unharmed, she crumpled on the floor, bursting into tears of relief.

The Creature started purring straight away, scooting down the mattress–chains permitting–trying to reach her, his hand extended in her direction, his scent stronger now. A part of her wanted to take his hand and give him a thorough examination to make sure he was truly unscathed, but she also didn’t want to repeat last night’s experience.

She hadn’t really thought too much about what had happened. But she couldn’t do anything to change it now, save for preventing it from happening again. In many of his videos Kylo had explained how moths were ruled by their biology, how their only purpose was finding a mate, and Crimson Eyes had simply acted as any moth would have acted in front of a female, even if said female wasn’t even of the same species as him.

How her body had reacted–how she had reacted–to the Creature’s nature was something else entirely, and she hadn’t the slightest intention of thinking about it now. Opening her backpack, she extracted the med-kit, and the N95 respirator stored in there. She hoped it would be enough against his pheromones.

“That’s okay,” she reassured him, drying her tears and putting the mask over her face. “It’s still me, just taking a little precaution to avoid–you know what.”

Crimson Eyes tugged on the chain then, making it creak, small flakes of paint falling from the wall behind him. Rey came closer at last, finally taking his hand in hers, making him purr so loudly that it became almost deafening. 

“I’ve brought you something,” she announced then, fishing the honey from her backpack with her free hand. 

He followed her movements with curiosity, while she produced a mug, a spoon, and a bottle of water.

“I need my hand back to prepare you something yummy,” she continued, extricating his fingers from between hers, “You can have it back after, I promise.”

Crimson Eyes wasn’t happy with Rey’s decision, and he let her know with that dull, nasal sound he’d produced last night. She shut him up by pushing the mug into his hands, his claws clinking against the porcelain. He sniffed it, suspicious, then squeaked, rolling his tongue straight into the mug, making Rey laugh so hard that her stomach began to hurt. He finished the meal voraciously, smacking his lips.

“Did you like it?” she asked, approaching him to take the mug back, but he was quicker than her, enveloping her in his arms.

The empty mug rolled onto the mattress, and Rey found her face squished against his neck–her mask the only thing preventing his silky fur from tickling her face–and his warm, strong arms cradling her. She almost closed her eyes then, her traitorous mind already running to how those same arms had pinned her down the previous night. Then something hard poked her butt, and she quickly came to her senses, squirming until he released her.

“Hey!” Rey protested. “Stop doing that! I didn’t give you my permission!” 

The Creature lowered his antennae almost comically at her words, but he didn’t lower his gaze, his red orbs still glued to her eyes. Rey approached him again, her index finger raised. This time, he didn’t try to squish her, nor did he try to spear her with his penis. 

“Good Boy,” she praised him, petting his hair. “No mating with Rey without her consent, yes?”

He emitted the dull sound, but didn’t move. 

“Excellent,” Rey continued. “Now, let me take a look at you, okay? I need to see if Kylo tried something on you. You only need to keep still.”

Strangely, he obeyed, and Rey thanked whoever listened to her prayers–she didn’t want to return to her room completely drenched in his fluids again. She began her examination, starting from his definitely human-looking feet, touching them, poking them, massaging them, and Crimson Eyes purred, following her movements with his eyes. She kept looking and prodding at his shapely legs then, until she met his still hard cock: she thought about skipping his groin together, but what if he was injured right there?

It was at half-mast, lying on the crease of the Creature’s hip, almost as red as his eyes. She poked its tapered head with her finger–making him purr louder–and it grew right in front of her, filling with blood and producing a huge bead of clear liquid from the deep cross-shaped crease on its tip. It was fascinating. Rey checked his whole length, until she met the warm nest of silky hair covering his groin, and continued her examination up his torso and arms–again, unscathed. She finished with his wings and his head, caressing his long, feathery antennae until he almost fell asleep.

“It looks like everything is in working order,” she whispered then, wondering what Kylo’s intentions towards Crimson Eyes were at that point.

Rey needed to free him as soon as possible. He purred contentedly under her caresses, his eyes now closed. He was beautiful, even chained like that, slumped on a mattress. Obviously, her mind ran straight to what had happened between them. Blushing, she checked his groin again: his penis had disappeared, probably retracting into whatever pouch it was meant to stay hidden in when he wasn’t aroused. She clenched her thighs, moisture already staining her panties.  


She sighed. “What the hell am I doing again?”


	13. Feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously, on Crimson Eyes:
> 
> Kylo is worried about Rey, but she tries to avoid him.  
> Crimson Eyes disappears in the morning, but he’s back in the dovecote after dusk.  
> He loves honey, and this time he obeys Rey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Rey has an erotic dream that’s dubcon at the beginning, with Mothlo chasing her through the woods.  
> The oviposition starts in this chapter. Crimson Eyes tries to keep an egg inside Rey's body, despite her wish to expel it.

Rey’s work schedule returned to normal the following day. After a very tense breakfast during which Kylo had been the only one to talk, he luckily decided to make a video about bringing some adult moths into the orchard, so the whole house was all hers. She tried to sneak into his studio, but he’d locked the door, making it impossible for her to retrieve anything so she could pick at the lock on Crimson Eyes’ collar. She needed to convince him to let her help with the pinned moths or their frames as soon as possible, or she wouldn’t have a chance to retrieve the needed tools to free the Creature. 

Rey took advantage of Kylo’s absence nonetheless, visiting the dovecote to see if it was empty–it was– and preparing some ham sandwiches to eat later. Then, she inspected the whole house looking for Crimson Eyes. The only rooms that were locked were Kylo’s bedroom and his studio, and she couldn’t smell the Creature’s presence there. She could still perceive Kylo’s scent, so similar, but it was faint. She even ventured in the cellars, finding only mold and humidity. They were completely empty, no sign of giant mothmen whatsoever.

She returned upstairs right in time for Kylo to come back and ask her what she would like to eat for lunch.

“I don’t feel well again,” she answered, faking a headache for the umpteenth time.

He puffed his cheeks, worried. “Maybe we should call a doctor? Or I could accompany you to yours?”

“That’s not necessary, I’m used to this,” she shrugged. “Happens every month.”

“Oh,” he squeaked. “But last month it didn’t, didn’t it?”

Of course it didn’t happen. “I didn’t want to be a burden so I kept my mouth shut.”

Kylo approached her then, putting one of his massive paws on her shoulders, making her automatically flinch. “Rey, you’ll never be a burden, believe me,” he said.

That afternoon after finishing work, she holed herself up in her room, taking a bubble bath. Her plan was to have some quality time for herself–some vibrator time–eat the sandwich she’d hidden in her desk, chat with the girls, check on Crimson Eyes, feed him, come back, and sleep like a baby for the rest of the night. But Kylo decided to knock on her door right when she was about to begin her quality time.

“For fuck’s sake,” she seethed.

“Rey,” he called her from behind the door. “Please, come down and eat something. I’m about to prepare dinner.”

She approached the door, but didn’t open it. “I’m okay. I need to rest, I’ll eat later if I’m hungry.”

“I’m worried about you,” he confessed. 

“There’s no need,” she chided him. “It’s only a migraine, it will pass, and I can still work.”

“I’m not really worried about what you can or cannot do.” 

She rolled her eyes.

“Rey,” he gulped. “This is difficult to admit, but–I don’t consider you only my emplo–”

“Go to sleep, Kylo,” she stopped him, pinching the bridge of her nose, her heart racing and a real migraine blooming behind her eyelids. “Of course I’m only your employee. I couldn’t be anything different.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmured from behind the door.

Rey didn’t move until she heard his steps fade. She returned to bed: her vibrator was still there, waiting for her, but she wasn’t in the mood anymore.

***

The mood returned later in the evening, after she ate her sandwich and took a sorely needed two-hours nap, during which she dreamed of being captured by Crimson Eyes. In the dream, she was walking in the woods at night, completely naked. The thought made her absurdly wet–and she knew there was someone observing her, chasing her from above. Her body was sweaty and feverish, and she could clearly smell her own arousal. There was no way the Creature wasn’t smelling her as well, so she started running, but the more she ran, the faster he approached her, his wings giving him an undeniable advantage over her useless feet. 

Finally, he dove upon her, and she didn’t even shriek since there was nothing she could do to stop the monster. He immobilised her on the ground, licking her whole body. His tongue was secreting some kind of silky filament, and she soon found herself in a cocoon, so soft and so suffocating at the same time that she didn’t know if she should panic or give in. But soon, something long, wet, and red speared the cocoon right where her pussy was located, filling her to the brim. 

Rey finally shrieked then, waking up in the span of a few seconds, crazy with want, her pussy throbbing–and her head as well. She took the vibrator from the nightstand, lifted her lace nightgown over her waist, and put a pillow under her ass. Teasing herself with one of the bulbous heads of the toy, she turned it on on the lowest setting, caressing her slick folds, plunging it between her inner lips from time to time. It was divine, but not enough to quench what the dream had awoken in her. 

She pushed then, her cunt so wet that the toy slid effortlessly between her spasming walls: she felt full, but it wasn’t enough–Crimson Eyes’ cock had filled her better, deeper, stretching her in the most delicious way. She turned around then, getting on all fours. After freeing the toy from her pussy, she placed it against her ass, taking advantage of how wet she was to breach her furled hole, filling her cunt again at the same time with the other head of the vibrator.

She moaned when her fingers finally landed on her clit, vibrations spreading all over her body. Working in small circles, fucking both her holes with her other hand, she soon approached the edge. She came imagining herself still in that cocoon, her fingers drumming against her clit while the monster fucked both her holes at the same time–was that even possible? She collapsed on the bed, her muscles spasming around the toy and her wetness running down her thighs, electricity spreading from her core across her limbs. 

Rey tried to sleep again after abandoning the vibrator on the floor, but her cunt was still throbbing, as if she hadn’t just gushed all over her pillow. She thought about having another round, her fingers already pushing against her nub to calm herself a bit, but then she remembered that she hadn’t fed Crimson Eyes yet, and her brain conjured memories of him folding her in half and fucking her like there was no tomorrow.

She sighed, her cunt clenching around nothing. Would it be so wrong to let him mate with her again? It had already happened once, after all, and she hadn’t done anything to stop it from happening. But this time, it would happen on her terms.

“Fuck it,” she said, taking her backpack and her mask, and exiting her room.

When Rey entered the dovecote, the Creature launched himself at her, making flakes of paint fall from the wall, the chain clinking. She hadn’t bothered taking a shower nor cleaning herself, so he could smell all of her musky glory. She got hit by his pheromones as well, but the mask was strong enough to not make them cloud her mind: she wanted to remember everything this time. 

She approached him, bottle in hand. He tried to lunge for her again, almost choking himself on the collar, his cock already hard. Kylo’s voice reminding her that moths were “ruled by their biology” came to mind again. He was right: in that moment, Crimson Eyes was more than ready to hurt himself just to mate with her. Her clit throbbed at the thought.

“Down! Stay back!” she barked. 

He obeyed, returning to the mattress and kneeling down, drool dripping from his lower lip and falling on the sheet as he emitted a long, sombre sound. His antennae were now folded downwards, their tips curling under his neck like the tail of a frightened dog lying between its legs.

“Aren’t you the most eager boy?” Rey mocked him, getting on the mattress and cleaning his chin with her thumb, not bothered in the slightest by his fluids.

She pushed the bottle in his hands, and he sniffed it, promptly squeaking and plunging his tongue in it, sucking up all the solution in seconds. Rey looked at how he smacked his dark lips after eating, licking them, the black, pointed tip of his tongue caressing them. Her hands sneaked to the hem of her nightgown, lifting it to expose her cunt to the Creature.

He was on her even faster than he’d sucked down the honey and water, his arms pinning her down on the mattress. He furiously rubbed his wet cock against her thighs, against the hair on her groin, against her abdomen, drenching her in his juices. She surrendered her neck to him, and he promptly buried his face in there, nosing at her tendons and nibbling at her skin. Then he turned her on her stomach almost effortlessly, like she weighed nothing, and bit her nape, his cock sliding against her folds again and again, pushing against her clit. Rey moaned loudly.

Now that she wasn’t drunk on pheromones it hurt–it hurt a lot–but as he soothed the bite with his tongue she felt her body relax, all the tension built-up in her muscles during the day abandoning her quickly. She was as malleable as soft putty now, no trace of pain whatsoever, the continuous wet grinding against her sensitive folds making her mad with want. Tired of his fumbling, she sneaked a hand between her legs, taking hold of his cock–he squeaked in surprise–and aligning it with her slit. 

Following her guidance, he finally penetrated her with a single, slow thrust, slick fluids running down her crouched legs, tickling the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. Her walls stretched deliciously against the most welcome intrusion, and she moaned–unfettered–as he bottomed out, the silky hair on his groin tickling her backside. She’d never felt so full in her life.

Crimson Eyes grabbed Rey’s hips, his claws leaving crescents on her skin, pulling out almost all the way, slowly, like torture. Rey, to her uttermost surprise and shame, found herself mourning the loss, whining as he’d personally wronged her. She tried to push back then, but his grip on her was too strong–she found herself craving being manhandled–so she just kept still until he decided to push again into her, penetrating her cunt with quick, shallow thrusts, making her wail under his assault.

It was better than any human man she’d been with–not many, but each one of them had been a different shade of disappointment–and it was also better than her vibrator. His cock was bumpy, and huge, but not too much, just the right size to throw her into the perfect mix of pain and pleasure. The best thing was how he kept his hands on her, squeezing, guiding, turning her around like she was a ragdoll. He was strong, enormous, larger-than-life, but also soft, protective, delicate. With his cock splitting her in two, she felt safe–she felt at _home._

Soon, he abandoned her cunt again, leaving her empty and aching for his presence, only to turn her around. She found herself on her right side then–that was new–her head almost over the edge of the mattress. The Creature spread her legs until he hooked one of them over his shoulder, like he did the other night; after a couple of failed attempts, he penetrated her again. His slick against hers, the new angle was divine, and his cock caressed all the right places inside of her. He fucked her like it was the last thing he would do before dying.

Never stopping, he changed position again. Releasing her leg and stretching across her back, he buried his nose in her hair, and his lips caressed the back of her neck, right where he’d bitten her several times already. Soon, Rey realized that she could kiss him if she turned her head, so she did it, after quickly removing her mask. Her nose was assaulted by a cocktail of their entwined scents, making her dizzy enough to forget where she was and what she was doing, but his vigorous assault on her cunt soon reminded her of her place.

She turned her head slowly, meeting his mouth, right behind her neck. Their lips touched briefly as he fucked her with long, lingering thrusts, and he stopped, buried to the hilt, his vocal cords emitting again that eerie squick of surprise. 

“You don’t know about kisses, do you?” Rey asked, almost slurring, and he began purring again against her lips, his loins resuming their work.

But this time, he didn’t pull out from her cunt. She could feel him thrusting against her, like he was trying to fuse his body with hers, like he wanted to fill her as much as possible. And then it happened again: somehow, his cock began to swell, a dull cramp spreading through her abdomen, but this time she didn’t try to break free, her curiosity too strong.

Crimson Eyes’ cock kept pulsing while he started trembling behind her, his arm sneaking across her waist, anchoring her against him, his warmth seeping into her feverish skin. Was he coming? Rey could clearly feel him swell inside of her, her internal walls accommodating him with short spasms, their combined wetness making things easier. She tried to pull a bit, but it was clear that they were stuck now: he had somehow successfully knotted her, as wolves did, and now they were joined for who knew how long. She sighed, stretching against him, exposing her neck to his lips again–he didn’t waste time, nibbling on it, making her shiver in pleasure. It wasn’t painful anymore, just a bit uncomfortable; maybe she shouldn’t have escaped the first time it happened.

“So,” Rey murmured, as he nosed at the crease behind her ear, “we’re stuck for real, huh?”

He purred louder, and she took his hand in hers, examining it. His claws were long and dark, there was no way she could let him touch her clit like that: after all, she already knew how easily they were capable of harm–the scar on her right arm was proof of that.

“Give me a hand?” she asked him, showing him how she hooked her forearm under her legs, and he quickly complied, keeping her legs spread for her. The cool air of the room hit her drenched folds, making her shiver, but he quickly folded his wings over her, keeping their combined warmth from dispersing. 

“Thank you,” she whispered, her fingers already traveling towards her clit. _“Oh.”_

Rey had never felt it so hard, so engorged: even the most delicate touch was enough to shoot jolts of pleasure through her spine. She circled it with her fingertips, massaged its hooded length, tapped against it until her cunt spasmed around the Creature’s pulsing cock, leaving her delirious between his arms, his teeth grazing her skin and his wings keeping her warm. The thought that they could be stuck for hours seemed far more appealing now.

She kept coming around him, until he emitted a strangled moan in her ear, and his cock swelled even more. It looked like his knot was moving upwards, trying to escape the confines of her inner walls, pushing against her cervix. She sped up the fingers on her nub, her last orgasm leaving her boneless and dizzy as he finally freed her of his length, sliding out of her in a puddle of slick. Eyes closed, she felt him move her until her head was cradled against his chest, and she let herself fall asleep between his arms. 

***

Rey didn’t sleep long. Luckily, when she woke up, it was still dark outside–she didn’t want Kylo to catch her canoodling with his prisoner, thank you very much. But something was wrong with her: her abdomen was tense and she felt the uncontrollable need to _push._ What the hell was happening to her? She sat up on the soaked mattress, waking up Crimson Eyes in the process, her hands feeling her abdomen. He crouched beside her, purring, his worried gaze roaming over her body. She felt as bloated as she was about to start her cycle, but it wasn’t the right time, so she lifted her nightgown–they were going to destroy it if they continued their trysts–sliding a finger in her still slick pussy. 

There was something there: her fingertips met a round, squishy object filling her canal. She lifted her gaze then, meeting the Creature’s: his brow was furrowed in worry, but she could also detect chagrin in his features, as well as in his floppy antennae, as if he was… expressing guilt?

“What did you put in me?” she exclaimed, making him bow his head. 

Rey’s cunt spasmed, and the thing slid slowly towards its freedom, stretching her inner lips and letting an abundant discharge of fluid, coating her thighs. She panicked, heart beating so fast that it was visible, her left breast spasming under the white lace of her nightgown, and Crimson Eyes panicked as well, grabbing her thighs and closing them.

“What are you doing?” she chastised him again, fighting against his grip. “I need to get it out, whatever it is!”

He left her legs then, but when she opened them again and started pushing, he fumbled around her pussy, trying to push the thing inside again.

“Hey!” Rey barked, showing him her teeth. “Keep those claws of yours off me!” 

He scrambled behind her then, hugging her tight. Rey kept pushing, and finally something whitish and oval fell from her cunt, rolling onto the mattress. Crimson Eyes stopped it with his hand, cradling it in his palms. When he presented it to Rey, it looked like some kind of egg. She checked if there were others, but her fingertips soon grazed her cervix, meeting only the string of her IUD. Everything seemed normal down there, save from the egg that had just popped out from her body, now cradled between the Creature’s giant hands.

“Let me see?” Rey asked him, and he let it slide into her palms.

It was almost translucent, its consistency squishy and gelatinous. She lifted it, letting the pale rays of moonlight coming from the opening in the walls shine through it, noticing that there was nothing inside. She gave it back to Crimson Eyes, but he shook his head, indicating that she should be the one to keep it.

“I don’t know what you’re expecting, but we’re not the same species. I can’t do anything with your egg. I didn’t even know males could lay eggs until ten minutes ago!” 

He purred louder, insisting again that she keep it, and she kissed his lips.

“I wish you could talk,” she murmured against his skin. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New incredible art by @MeetingYmaker on Twitter! Show them some love!
> 
> I'm organizing a [Kinktober](https://twitter.com/persimonne666/status/1309125965692448773?s=20) event! Follow me on Twitter for details <3 @persimonne666


	14. Kisses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously, on Crimson Eyes:
> 
> Rey keeps avoiding Kylo.  
> He surprises her with a half-botched declaration.  
> Rey, horny, decides to return to the dovecote.  
> Crimson Eyes fucks her like there’s no tomorrow.  
> Apparently, he can knot Rey and lay eggs inside her. The more you know!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [MissCoppelia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissCoppelia/pseuds/MissCoppelia) is the wonderful beta that made this possible and I wouldn't publish this without her. Thank you so much!
> 
> CW / Butt stuff ! It begins here.

In the end, the egg withered on its own in the span of a few hours. Rey had put it in a cup on her desk and when she checked on it in the morning, there was nothing left, save for a faint smearing of goo. She quickly washed the cup, then she checked if her nightgown was dry–it was, since she’d showered and washed it during the night, sleeping in the nude. She went downstairs to eat something, finding Kylo already there, preparing breakfast.

“Hey,” he greeted her, avoiding her eyes. “I’ve made eggs, do you want some?”

Rey's mind raced to the single, transparent egg Crimson Eyes had shot up her cunt, after he’d knotted her for what had felt like hours, and her face became so red that she had to sit down.

“Rey? Are you okay?”

She hid her face in her hands. “More or less. Still feel queasy. I think I’ll stick to plain toast and tea, please.”

They ate in silence–she didn’t have anything to say to Kylo–and after they finished, she tried to take her billhook and disappear in the orchard as soon as possible, but he stopped her with a hand on her wrist. He lacked the claws, but his hands were the same size as Crimson Eyes’ hands. Her heart skipped a beat.

“Rey,” he gulped. “About yesterday…”

She turned, facing him, ice in her eyes. “There is nothing to say about yesterday.”

He opened his mouth a couple of times, but nothing came out. Rey put the billhook on the table, forcing herself to finally ask the question that was burning on her tongue since she visited the dovecote for the first time.

“Maybe… Maybe there is one thing, after all,” she began, her heart already racing. 

Kylo nodded, grimacing. Was he about to cry? 

“I know what you’re doing,” she continued, taking a huge breath so she could finally ask him about the Creature. “You–”

“I’m trying to confess that I’ve fallen in love with you,” he spat, tears now falling from his eyes. “I didn’t want it to happen, believe me, but it happened.” 

He carded his right hand through his hair. His eyes were shining now, their colour almost golden in the kitchen’s light. He was strikingly beautiful.

“You’re the first person that treated me like a human being,” he panted, approaching her. “I’m not good at this, I’ve never done anything like this, and I don’t know if I misinterpreted your actions, but–”

He kissed her. He folded his enormous body, bowing down, pecking her mouth with a delicate, chaste kiss, his trembling hands cradling her face. She didn’t move, her eyes closed, her heart crumbling upon that brief contact, something that she’d desired so much, and yet–

“I love you, Rey,” he whispered, their mouths touching for a second time, letting his tongue slide past her lips and meeting with hers in a quick, unspoken promise.

When she opened her eyes, he was already gone.

***

Rose squealed so loudly that Rey had to remove the phone from her ear. Telling her what had happened between her and Kylo had maybe been a mistake, but she needed an unbiased opinion.

“Rose, please,” she tried to calm her down. “It happened very quickly and it’s not like I could answer the kiss. It was little more than a peck on the lips.”

It was almost dark, she was sitting in the orchard, and Kylo had avoided her for the whole day after the kiss, leaving her food and post-it notes in the kitchen. She never got to tell him that she knew about his prisoner up in the dovecote, and he’d given her a kiss she still wasn’t sure she wanted.

Rose groaned. “But you’ve been waiting for this since your first week, haven’t you?”

“I was, but–” she stopped herself before saying too much. “Let’s just say that something came up, and I’m not so convinced anymore.”

“Oh my God! Did you open the secret room? Was he hiding his dead wives in there?”

Rey laughed nervously. “Of course not. I found just bare walls and bird poop there. Nothing to write home about.”

“Then what?” Rose prodded her. “Did he kill someone for real? Do we need to come down there and save you?”

“Nothing so extreme,” Rey laughed. “But that’s it, I’m not onboard anymore, and I don’t know how to tell him.”

“Just tell him that you see him as a friend. If he really loves you, he’ll understand.”

“So, I should break his heart,” Rey exhaled.

“I see no other solution. It’s harsh, but it will be better in the long run, and you still have to work a few months there… I’m just sorry it didn’t work, I was rooting for you!”

“I–I know, Rose. I’m sorry as well… I have to go, now, I still have some moths to feed.”

She closed the call, returning inside. It was dark now, Kylo had holed himself up in his room, and it was time to return to the dovecote. She wanted to feed Crimson Eyes and give him a manicure. The manicure first, maybe. Her heartbeat speeding up, she wondered for the umpteenth time what was wrong with her–reaching the solution that is was a stupid question to ask. Putting her mask on, she joined him: his reaction upon seeing her was milder than the absolutely wild scene he’d put up last night, especially with her fully clothed. There was no slick between her thighs, this time.

“Hey,” she cooed, joining him on the mattress.

His antennae perked up, making her laugh, and she quickly removed her mask to give him a peck on the cheek. His scent was strong, but not dizzying. He looked a bit surprised at first, but then he squeaked, repeating the action on her cheek. She laughed, securing the mask behind her ears.

“Before you eat, and before we–uhm, have fun, I want to try something,” she announced, fishing out her nail clipper and file from her backpack. “Can I?”

He let her take his right hand in hers, observing carefully what her intentions were. She began from his index finger, chopping the tip of his claw with a sonorous snap: since he didn’t protest, she filed the remaining part of the nail, until it was well rounded and smooth.

“You can touch me without tearing my skin like this,” she explained, and he promptly grabbed her by her torso, mindful of his remaining claws, putting her on his lap.

She still wasn’t used to that kind of manhandling, but it was nice to be held like that, and the position was ideal to cut and file all his nails without having to contort herself. He rested his chin on her shoulders as she worked, purring contentedly. 

“I’ll show you how to touch me, and how to make me come,” she continued. “I know you follow your biology, but I’m sure that biology has no idea where the clit is, am I right?”

Crimson Eyes purred softly until she finished her work. His hands definitely looked less menacing now, and Rey was more than ready to teach him how to make her sing. She scooted down his lap, putting her tools away in her backpack and taking the jar of honey she’d used to feed him so far.

“Let’s begin with a bit of foreplay,” she announced, removing her clothes in front of him.

His proximity, and the idea that he was going to make her come on his fingers made her cunt clench in its emptiness, her inner lips beginning to grow slick with moisture–but nothing comparable to the previous night–and he quickly approached her, his vermilion cock already hard and leaking between his legs. He was fast indeed.

“Down!” she exclaimed, a smirk on her face. “I’m not ready yet.”

He obeyed, keeping his distance from her: his antennae were sticking to his head, his chest was heaving, and his cock was making a mess on the sheet. She knelt in front of him, removing her mask again and opening the jar of honey: she then dipped two fingers inside, coating her lips with the sticky substance.

“Kiss me,” she whispered, and he slowly moved closer, his nostrils spasming quickly, smelling the sweet scent on her.

Rey got a mouthful of tongue almost without warning. 

“Not like this, silly,” she encouraged him, grabbing his pointy chin and guiding his mouth against hers. “Like you did on my cheek.”

She caressed his dark, plump mouth with her sticky one, and he answered the kiss shyly, delicately, until she slid her tongue between his lips, mindful of his pointy teeth. He reciprocated the gesture, moving his tongue alongside hers, until he invaded her mouth, the black, smooth muscle stroking her pink, rough one, making her shiver, making her head spin with his taste. The kiss ended with him licking the remaining honey from her mouth, as she stroked his chest with her hands, pale skin contrasting against grey velveteen.

Rey picked up some more honey, smearing it under her jaw, on her clavicles, on her breasts. Crimson Eyes folded his enormous body, bowing down, attaching his lips to her delicate skin and slowly licking the honey away until he reached her nipples, which pebbled immediately under his attentions. He kept mouthing at them, seemingly amused by how much Rey was shivering, fascinated at the dark, rough skin quickly shrinking the more he played with it. Rey caressed his chest then, noticing for the first time that he didn’t have nipples–that made sense, since he wasn’t a mammal–but his pectoral muscles were all smooth and velvety, without any blemish whatsoever. No wonder he was so entranced with hers.

“Good Boy,” Rey praised him, caressing his antennae.

He purred immediately, following her as she reclined in the middle of the mattress. Her fingers dipped into the jar again, smearing honey between her legs as well, past her lips, right on her clit. The Creature approached his treat starting from her belly, burying his nose in her coarse pubic hair–his red eyes never leaving Rey’s–and finally tasting her with his tongue. The long, black muscle slithered between her folds, teasing her ass and traveling upwards until he met her opening, dipping inside of it. Rey’s inner walls danced around the intrusion, her back arching from the mattress. After fucking her with this tongue, he traveled upwards again to finally slide against her nub with broad strokes, the merging of their combined fluids and the honey making her melt in a puddle of pleasure. 

He kept licking at her, plunging into her cunt from time to time, taking care of her sensitive nub until she came, writhing beneath him, her thighs almost crushing his skull. 

“Sorry,” Rey said, freeing him. “Too much.”

Crimson Eyes scooted up on the mattress, his cock rubbing against her legs, coating them with slick, his lips finally seeking Rey’s as he grinded against her folds, his smell now almost overwhelming. 

“Ah,” she moaned as he turned her on her stomach, cradling her against his warm chest, his teeth grazing the back of her neck. “I was wondering when you’d bite me.”

His teeth made her whimper as usual, but he soothed her with his tongue right away, making her putty in his hands. Then, to Rey’s surprise, his right hand began exploring her folds, slowly, until two on his fingers slid inside her cunt, his cock following right after.

“That’s it,” she moaned, pushing against him until he bottomed out. “Good, Good Boy.”

He was fascinated by the fact that he could touch her now–he soon realized he could touch himself as well–and he kept doing it, his now wet fingertips roaming over their skin, sliding over his cock, caressing her stretched inner lips. She took his hand then, guiding it on her front, and between her legs again.

“There, keep touching,” she encouraged him, and he did, pushing lightly against her swollen nub until she moaned, melting beneath him, ass in the air and face resting on the mattress.

Spurred by her voice, he began pounding into her, fingertips never stopping their work on her clit until she came surprisingly fast, trembling, clenching, panting. Her limbs still twitching in aftershock, he pulled out, turning her around and lifting her on his lap. Rey hooked her arms behind his neck and he kissed her lips, unprompted, caressing her jaw with his still wet fingers. He was so sweet, so eager to learn about her body.

Rey tilted her head, licking the pad of his thumb, and he purred, inserting two fingers into her mouth. His cock, now resting under her, in the crease of her ass, twitched as she kept sucking on his fingers. Their intermingled flavours were sweet and tangy at the same time, the final result glorious against her tongue. He kissed her again then, black tongue sliding against her mouth, squeaking in delight upon discovering how good their mixed fluids tasted.

“Do you like it?” Rey smiled, and he promptly plunged his fingers inside her cunt, collecting more moisture and feeding it to her.

She lapped eagerly, cleaning his soft fingertips while he grabbed her by her hips, marveling at how his nails now could sink into her skin without breaking it, and maneuvered her over the tip of his cock. Sneaking a hand between her legs, she grabbed his ovipositor, holding it still, letting gravity do all the work. She impaled herself on him, his hard length easily sinking into her still-tender cunt, her drenched walls surrendering to him, engulfing him, massaging his wondrous cock until he properly moaned against her mouth. 

“Yes,” Rey whined breathily as he grabbed her ass. 

The Creature’s fingertips squeezed her muscles, lifting her only to let her fall in his cock again, taking her breath away. She let him do all the work–he was strong, tireless, and hungry for her to accept him wholeheartedly. She clung to his neck and inhaled his scent, her fingers seeking purchase in the silky mane trailing down his back. Soon, his mouth found her neck, and he started grazing at her skin again: Rey couldn’t bite him back in retaliation, so she simply accepted his pounding, her cunt so wet and swollen that every stroke brought her closer to the edge.

Bringing her right hand between her legs, Rey started touching herself–their angle making it impossible for him to reach her clit. As she moaned in his ear, he slid a hand between her legs from behind, trying to reach her cunt, caressing her stretched lips. But soon, he found her ass, all slick with their shared fluids and pliant, and he put a finger there, making her clench around his cock. He almost jolted, looking at her with a surprised expression on his face.

“Yes, that’s my other hole,” she panted as he pushed, squeaking in delight as her muscle slowly gave in around his fingertip, until he was buried inside of her to the knuckle.

That was enough to make Rey tumble over the edge. Skin covered in goosebumps and electricity spreading through the lower half of her body, she wailed, hopelessly clinging to his neck. Crimson Eyes purred loudly in her ear, pumping into her savagely until his cock started to swell: he was about to knot her again, and the mere thought made her come a second time, the aftershocks of her first orgasm still coursing through her legs, her ass still clenching around his curious digit.

Rey’s own fingers started pushing against her clit then, while the Creature’s cock pulsed violently inside of her. The texture of the finger breaching her ass was making her crazy: she shuddered violently against him, and came a third time, slick drenching her bottom as her fingers brought her to the verge of overstimulation. Crimson Eyes changed their angle then, slumping against the cushions until Rey could comfortably rest against his chest, wrapping her body into his warm wings.

Rey smiled at him tiredly, and he kissed her, the flavour of his lips heavenly against hers. His knot was now fully formed, and she felt stretched beyond measure–without pain, this time. Closing her eyes, she basked in his warmth, protesting weakly only when his middle finger tried to breach her furled hole again, penetrating her without effort.

“I don’t think I can come again,” she slurred against his velvety pectorals, but he didn’t stop fucking her ass with his finger, like a kid who couldn’t stop playing with a new toy.

Her clit throbbed from time to time, but it was too sensitive to play with it again, so she simply closed her eyes, accepting his enthusiasm. He stopped fingering her only when she felt his egg slowly abandoning his knot, stretching her inner walls. He closed his eyes shut, purring slowly, his eyebrows scrunched and his fingers squeezing the muscles of her ass and thighs, the one still inside of her pushing maddeningly against her tailbone, as if to seek purchase inside her body. 

The Creature moaned deliriously as the egg finally left his cock, followed by a spurt of warm slick; the organ, now slowly deflating, slid out of Rey’s pussy, amidst a discharge of transparent fluid. He unhooked his finger from her ass then, pushing her on the mattress and grabbing her hips until her bottom was held higher than her head. Boneless as she was, Rey didn’t even protest against the manhandling.

“It won’t stay inside,” she tried to explain. “I don’t have the right organs.”

A light push was enough for the translucent, oval egg to slide out of her body, landing on the soaked sheet. Crimson Eyes produced the usual dull sound that he used to convey his disappointment. Grabbing both Rey’s calves in his right hand, he folded her legs until her holes were fully exposed to him. 

“You can try to push it inside again whenever you want,” she stated. “It won’t remain there.” 

As to prove her wrong, he pushed the egg inside her well-fucked cunt. Her labia stretched against the intrusion, quickly giving in against his fingers, but she pushed again until the egg left her body, moaning as it caressed her walls. The sound he made was almost amusing, and Rey barely stopped herself from laughing–he seemed genuinely upset by the fact that there was no way for her to store his egg inside of her.

“See? That can’t work for us. You can lay all the eggs you want, my body is not made to kee–”

Rey squealed loudly as Crimson Eyes began to push the egg against her backside then. She was still wet from before, and relaxed after coming so many times, so her ass engulfed the soft egg without any problem, stretching against it in a delicious way. He pushed until her ass closed again around his finger, the egg now deeply nestled inside her body.

“You’re unbelievable!” she laughed.

Her body wracked by a shiver, she didn’t dare push the egg out this time. The Creature’s smile almost made her heart skip a beat. He purred contentedly, sheltering her between his wings, and she let him, bringing his left hand between her legs until he took the hint and started caressing her clit again. In the dark of the dovecote, amidst their shared smells and fluids, Rey moaned quietly, letting herself go, his warm hands bringing her over the edge for the fourth time that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @AlhenaCrimson on Twitter made wonderful art for this story!
> 
> Check her other art [here](https://twitter.com/AlhenaCrimson/status/1312659234019049472?s=20) and (a spicy one!) [here](https://twitter.com/AlhenaCrimson/status/1284223577416511490?s=20)!


	15. The Lock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously, on Crimson Eyes:
> 
> Kylo tells Rey he loves her, and he kisses her.  
> Rey is shocked by the kiss and she’s confused.  
> Rose’s shipping dreams wither miserably after her call with Rey.  
> Rey gives Crimson Eyes a manicure and she teaches him foreplay.  
> Crimson Eyes finds a new place where to lay his egg.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, I have to thank [MissCoppelia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissCoppelia/pseuds/MissCoppelia) for betaing this (lol) monster! Thank you so much!
> 
> CW / Full anal intercourse + oviposition

Kylo knocked on Rey’s door before breakfast. She was still sleeping soundly, exhausted after her nighttime tryst with Crimson Eyes–once she came back from the dovecote she still had to  _ expel _ the egg and take a shower, and the knocking startled her.

Yawning, she opened the door, finding a heavily blushing Kylo on the other side. She was still wearing her lace nightgown, leaving her skin almost on full display, her pebbled nipples visible under the white swirls of thread. This was the first time he’d seen her in such attire, and the effect it had on him was… charming.

“Yes?” she said, annoyance palpable in her tone.

“Good morning,” he gulped. “I have an emergency of sorts today–I need to go to town for an interview about the museum and the fundraising. They wanted to interview me during next weekend, but then I told them that I’m not available in the late afternoon, an–”

“That’s okay,” Rey interrupted. “What do you need me to do?”

“The courier is going to pick up my frames today after 3 p.m., so you’ll need to pack them up. Every frame already has its label on it, you only have to put them in the boxes with the bubble wrap and double-check the addresses on the labels before sticking it.”

“That’s fine,” Rey nodded. “I can do that.”

Kylo gave her the keys of his studio. “I’ll prepare breakfast, feed the caterpillars, and then I’ll go. Call me if you need anything.”

They didn’t talk during breakfast. Kylo was particularly fidgety–probably because of the interview–and Rey’s brain was already calculating what to look for in his studio to finally open Crimson Eyes’ lock. Probably she could easily succeed using only a couple of paperclips folded in the right way–the memory of a small, scrawny past-Rey freeing herself from one of her foster homes came to mind, making her shudder in discomfort. But this could be her only chance to free the Creature, and she didn’t want to waste it.

Luckily, Kylo showed her where everything was before going into the orchard to cut some branches. He had a whole box full of paper clips–which she pocketed–and several pairs of pliers in different sizes. She pocketed a couple of those as well. Preparing the packages was dull and repetitive work, and she needed to finish everything and bring everything downstairs before the courier arrived. But first, she had a lock to pick. 

After Kylo left, telling her that he would message her before leaving town, Rey promptly ran to the dovecote. Predictably, it was empty, the mattress bare. Kylo had again removed the soaked sheets, but Crimson Eyes’ smell lingered between its fibers. The collar was lying there, its chain still hanging from the wall. She started tinkering with the paperclips, trying to remember the correct way to fold them, and after several tries and almost an hour of her heart pounding and sweat, the lock yielded, opening.

“Yes!” she shouted, fists in the air.

Crimson Eyes would fly home soon.

***

That night, Rey retrieved the tools she’d made using the paperclips and ran to the dovecote right after her phone call with the girls, still clothed and with her mask on. Crimson Eyes was there, chained, lying on freshly changed sheets. The fact that Kylo took the time to change and wash the sheets every day almost made Rey laugh out loud, and her mind raced straight to him: that afternoon he’d returned from his interview in a foul mood, holing himself up in his room and skipping dinner altogether, leaving her to eat alone for once. He hadn’t even greeted her, and somehow it hurt.

She wondered what had happened during the interview, but soon the Creature welcomed her with a low purr and a kiss against her mask that almost made her heart melt, distracting her from her thoughts about her employer. He embraced her tightly then, caressing her through her clothes, and he soon sneaked a hand between her legs. She grabbed his wrist before he could make her  _ too _ interested: they didn’t have time to waste.

“I’m here to free you. Okay?”

Crimson Eyes looked at her, puzzled. She took her tools out from her backpack, and gave him the usual bottle containing water and honey to drink, occupying him enough to tinker with his collar. She quickly repeated the movement she’d made that afternoon, and the lock opened without too much fuss after a couple of tries. 

“There,” she said, opening the collar, mindful of the sensitive skin of his neck. “You’re free.”

Getting on her feet, she opened the door, exhorting him to come with her down the spiral staircase. He would have to fold his wings, but if Kylo could bring him in the dovecote every evening, and bring him out every morning, she was sure she could do the same thing. In any case, her plan was to let him out of the first window of the northern corridor, so he could fly to the woods directly from there. 

But Crimson Eyes never left his makeshift bed, his eyes wide, his hands massaging his neck, like he was looking for the collar.

“You’re free,” Rey repeated, her blood pressure almost making her ears ring. “Come here!”

He joined her on unsteady feet, but instead of folding his massive wings to walk through the door, he swept her up in a bridal carry, throwing her on the mattress.

“Hey!” she barked. “I’m not here to fuck tonight! You’re free, do you understa–”

Crimson Eyes removed Rey’s mask, crashing his mouth against hers, his tongue already pushing against her lips. She caved, his luxurious smell invading her nostrils, making her dizzy and needy to the point of almost forgetting why she was there. His hard, leaking cock was pulsing against her thigh and her body almost moved on its own accord, seeking friction against his hip bone.

“Your collar is off,” she panted as he nuzzled her neck. “The door is open, why are you still here?”

As to prove something to her, he fetched the collar from behind him, fastening it around his neck again, his hands surprisingly dexterous while closing the lock. Rey was speechless, and he kissed her again, a quick peck on her parted lips.

“What–what the hell is going on?” she asked then, her eyebrows scrunching. “Why did you put that back after all the trouble I had to endure to open it?”

The Creature emitted that dull, sombre sound, like he was somehow disappointed by her insistence, but then he started fumbling with her jeans straight away, unbuttoning them after a couple of tries, sneaking his right hand between her legs, touching, caressing, making her head spin.

“Ah,” Rey panted. “Tell me… tell me why you put the collar back. Are–are you afraid of Kylo Ren?”

He shook his head, bringing a hand on her right arm, tapping on the spot where the scar was, under the sleeve of her T-shirt. She removed it, and he caressed her skin, right over the scar, his other hand between her legs, making her moan.

“What are you trying to tell me?” she kept asking. “Are you even a prisoner?”

He shook his head again, both thumbs swirling on her skin, the first one over her scar, the other one over her soaked panties. Rey was feeling dizzy, but she needed to push through the haze, she needed to know.

“Is Kylo Ren keeping you prisoner?” 

Crimson Eyes shook his head again, curling over her, letting his tongue lap at her scar, repeatedly, as he wanted to prove a very specific point. Rey removed his right hand from her cunt, squeezing it. Maybe… maybe she’d been confused, jumping too quickly to conclusions.

“Hey,” she said, heart pounding in her chest. “Are you here of your own accord?”

The Creature’s red eyes froze on her face. He blinked, his absurdly long lashes casting faint shadows on his cheekbones, and he nodded, almost imperceptibly.

“Fuck,” Rey whispered, a lump forming in her throat. “Why?”

That didn’t make sense in the slightest. Of all the scenarios she’d played out in her mind, having Crimson Eyes pass every single night chained to a wall in a remote room protected by a reinforced door  _ because he wanted to _ was the most absurd and mind-blowing. She tried to think of another question to ask him, hoping that he would elaborate, but he seemed hell-bent on having his way with her tonight, nosing insistently at her scar again, his purr becoming louder. If he didn’t want to come out of the dovecote, she couldn’t force him, after all. 

His fingers stroked her clit through her panties again, in mind-melting circles that almost made Rey dizzy. She caressed his face, her fingertips brushing lightly against his velvety skin, her thumbs landing on his dark lower lip. He licked it. She buried her face in his neck, inhaling his scent, her nose nuzzling his silky, black fur until he grabbed her chin and kissed her, their tongues meeting. Rey interrupted their kiss only to remove her jeans and panties, and he didn’t waste time, diving between her legs, his long, black tongue caressing her folds until she trembled beneath him, a first, quick orgasm washing over her limbs. 

This time, she turned around on her own accord, baring her nape to him. Crimson Eyes answered quickly, his teeth closing around her neck, tearing her skin lightly and soothing the wound with his tongue until she became putty between his arms. He manhandled her, spreading her under him, slouched on her left side, one of her legs hooked around his shoulders. Her cunt within easy reach, he rubbed her nub slowly until she moaned, chest heaving and back arching, her folds now familiar to him. Right before she came, he stopped, but her protest was stifled by his drenched cock, penetrating her cunt with quick, shallow thrusts, her walls giving in around him, stretching her deliciously.

When his hand returned on Rey’s clit, she exploded. Writhing in scorching hot pleasure, her walls clenched around his shaft, now bottoming inside of her, filling her with his slick. Still trembling, she had to remove his hand from her cunt–too sensitive, too soon–so he caressed the spot where they were joined, tickling her stretched inner lips still welcoming his erection. 

His intentions now clear, he soon brought his middle finger against her furled hole, and waited for her permission. Rey didn’t prepare herself for this kind of play, but since he hadn’t seemed to care in the slightest the previous evening she nodded, pushing against his digit until it breached her. His velvety skin titillated her in the most delicious way, making her shiver.

“P–please,” she stammered, and he started pounding into her, her ass fluttering already against the intrusion, calling for another finger.

He promptly fulfilled her need, soaking his left index between her drenched folds before coupling it with his middle one and pushing both of them inside her ass. Still relaxed from his bite and her previous orgasm, her muscles yielded to the intrusion. The whole lower half of her body spasmed around him, and her moans filled the small room, again on the brink of the precipice.

The Creature folded Rey’s body in two, unhooking her leg from his shoulder and bringing her knee against her ribs, leaving her completely exposed to his whims. She feebly protested when his cock left her cunt, promptly trembling when she felt its tapered head push against her ass as his fingers abandoned it, juices flowing between her cheeks. She just laid there, welcoming his cock in her ass, its slick head breaching her strong, yet relaxed muscle. His cock felt like molten lava inside of her, slowly working her open, and her whole body erupted in goosebumps. 

A low, long moan left her lips as he finally bottomed, his length reaching new depths inside of her, a delicious, burning sensation washing all over her spine–did she just come like that, untouched? Crimson Eyes quietly encircled her, his warm chest against her back, and started rutting against her with quick thrusts. As his right hand sneaked around to her front, his fingers traveled through her soaked hair, finding her swollen nub again and pushing delicately against it. And now, she was coming for real, ass clenching around him, cunt clenching around nothing. Crimson Eyes’ mouth looked for hers, kissing, and biting, and licking until his knot swelled, filling her ass perfectly, like he was born to fuck her like that. She felt like they were two pieces of a puzzle finally locking together.

Rey came again at the feeling of his knot stretching her insides in that maddening way, his fingers still lazily caressing her. In another spasm, her hole clenched around him, and she felt his knot–his egg–start to move, slowly traveling through his shaft. For the first time, Crimson Eyes emitted a proper moan amidst all the purring. He quickly unloaded his egg between her guts, accompanied by an unholy quantity of fluids, his whole body quivering. They remained like this, panting, basking in each other’s warmth and in the feeble quaking of her limbs, still recovering from her orgasms. She was utterly exhausted.

Crimson Eyes’ cock left Rey’s ass slowly, her muscles spasming and tickling in their effort to tighten again. She turned between his arms, facing him, and they ended their coupling panting and kissing, the sheet under them drenched again, and his warm wings covering her shivering body. 

“I wish you’d come out of here,” Rey said, smiling sadly, while he purred against her nape. “With me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another beautiful illustration by @Kupo_solidago on Twitter!


	16. A Friend of Sorts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously, on Crimson Eyes:
> 
> Rey steals supplies to free Crimson Eyes from his chains.  
> Everything goes smoothly, but he doesn’t want to leave the dovecote.  
> Rey is shocked to discover that Crimson Eyes’ captivity never happened at Kylo’s hand.  
> Somehow, sex happens again, and Rey finds an egg in her butt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you, thank you for the neverending support <3

Once in her bed, Rey dreamed. She was standing in her nightgown, completely drenched, in a dark, but familiar place. Soon, two pairs of hands–one white, one grey–emerged from the darkness, grabbing her and tugging her in opposite directions. Without thinking twice, she followed the gray hands, discovering that they were leading to a small, white cage perched on a wooden stand. Inside the cage there was a moth, alone, asking for her help with the voice of a child. She tried to open the cage, but there weren’t any openings to be found.

“Hang in there, I’ll go looking for help,” she said then, going back to the first room, where she’d seen the hands for the first time.

The white pair of hands was still there. While she’d been hesitant to take them before, now she wasn’t anymore: somehow, she knew she could trust those too. She followed them, and they brought her to another cage, black this time, perched on a wooden stand. Inside, there was another moth, identical to the previous one, asking for help. Rey looked around, to see where the hands were, but she woke up instead, a ray of light hitting her face from the ajar blinds. It was dawn.

She blinked. Despite the aching of her joints after what had happened the previous night, she felt rested for once–fully alive and energized despite the early hour. Stretching on the mattress, her lacy nightgown tickling her skin, she thought about her dream–now already foggy in her mind–and then she thought about the situation she was in.

She needed to talk to Kylo. She needed to talk to Kylo and tell him she was sorry: her behaviour towards him had been abysmal in the last days. Letting him know that she was aware of the Creature up in the dovecote was paramount as well. She brushed her teeth and washed her face quickly–she’d already showered during the night–but an insistent knocking interrupted her while she was choosing what to wear. Hastily donning her nightgown again, she opened the door, finding an extremely apologetic Kylo Ren on the other side.

The sight made her falter, guilt washing over her. 

“Good morning,” she whispered, lowering her gaze.

“Rey,” he gulped, his cheeks pink. “I’m so sorry for yesterday… I didn’t even look at you when you greeted me. The interview didn’t go well, and I was… Angry, I guess.”

“That’s okay,” she reassured him. “I survived eating alone, don’t worry.”

“I’m also very sorry for the day before. I behaved like a… brainless idiot.”

Rey sighed, her heart beating wildly. Now that she knew that he wasn’t keeping Crimson Eyes prisoner, her old attraction to him began to resurface again, quick and merciless. She looked at him, his teeth tormenting his lower lip. What was he thinking about? All she could think about was the kiss he’d given her in the kitchen, and how awkward they both had been in the following hours. She’d wanted that kiss with her whole being, but the rage and the frustration she was harbouring towards him had clouded her feelings, making her resentful and bitter on the Creature’s behalf.

“I–” he started again, “I kissed you without your consent. I’m sorry.”

“Kylo, I–”

“I–I acted without thinking. I’m okay if you just want to be friends, Rey… Hell, I would be  _ honoured _ if you would consider me your friend, aft–”

“I didn’t mind the kiss!” she blurted out, blushing. “I was–I’m dealing with some personal issues at the moment, and I’m sorry if I came off as cold, or… downright rude, it’s not–it’s not your fault. My head might have been elsewhere, but your kiss wasn’t unwelcome.”

_ “Oh,” _ he whispered, amber eyes widening.

“I… I was kind of waiting for that kiss…” she murmured, a shy smile lifting one corner of her mouth while her heart tried to escape from her chest.

Kylo laughed, his dimple showing up. “I feel… it feels like there are...  _ moths _ in my stomach.”

Rey felt dizzy as well. Without thinking, she grabbed his neck, pulling his mouth against hers. Their teeth clashed, but Kylo soon adjusted his angle, folding his body to properly fit their lips together. He tasted of toothpaste–his usual, nice scent a bit hidden by the minty taste–but his mouth was plush and soft, and it somehow reminded her of Crimson Eyes’ dark, meaty lips. The thought made her moan, and this spurred Kylo to slide his tongue inside her mouth. 

He was clumsy, but eager–his big, warm palms delicately cupping her jaw, lips curious to taste her. Rey found his inexperience charming, just as she’d found the way she had to show the Creature how to properly kiss her charming. Taking one of his hands, she brought it over her left breast, where her pebbled nipple was already peeking from the lace circlets of her nightgown, and he moaned in her mouth. Was he already hard? She was wet, and impatient to kiss, to bite, to fuck him. She ended the kiss only to look at him, at the need and the desperation etched on his angular features, and taking his hand, she led him to her bed.

She clenched her thighs. Crimson Eyes had somehow made her more receptive, more sensual, more greedy. Despite spending the entire night with the Creature, now she desired Kylo too, with the same intensity she’d wanted him before finding out about the dovecote. Her body craved his touch, and her mind craved a connection, someone to talk to, someone that would not disappear in the mornings, going who knows where. 

“You’re beautiful,” Kylo murmured, as she pushed him on the mattress with a hand on his chest.

She crawled over him, straddling his thighs–she wasn’t even sure if she could be able to do the same thing with Crimson Eyes, riding him properly–his mouth hanging open in surprise. She attacked his plush lips, biting and soothing her bites with her tongue, her hands running over his silky hair, over the soft skin and taut tendons of his neck.

“What do you want?” she asked, making him sigh, eyelashes fluttering and Adam’s apple bobbing under her kisses.

“I–” he began, shaking his head. “I don’t know. I never thought anything like this could happen. To me.”

“Why?” Rey asked, nosing at his jawline. 

“It’s–it’s a long story,” he said. “I’m not brave enough to talk about it, I’m afraid.”

Rey brought their groins together, her wet, barely covered cunt grinding against his clothed erection, making him gasp. “And what are you brave enough to do?”

“To tell you that I love you,” he stated, biting his lower lips, his cheeks red and his amber eyes fixed on hers.

Rey almost faltered.

“I don’t want this to be only sex, Rey.”

“What do you want it to be?”

He stopped her grinding, a hand on the small of her back, the other caressing her hair, his short fingernails scratching her scalp lightly. “I want to… I want to share my days with you, if you’d let me.” 

Rey gulped, her heart skipping a beat. No one had ever told her something like that before.

“I–I want to have sex Rey, but…” he continued, “it’s never been my priority.”

Was she ready? Was she ready to commit to this intense, lonely man? Could she launch herself in a relationship with him, with someone whose life was a never-ending secret, a continuous game of hide and seek? She sighed.

“We can’t have a relationship if I can’t trust you. And I can’t trust you if you hide things from me.”

“But you can–you want to–have sex with me.”

She nodded, her crotch trying to hump his now much softer erection. 

Kylo closed his eyes, gulping, and she scooted upwards, her mouth on his again, pecking at his lips. “Well?”

“There are things I don’t feel ready to share yet. Maybe I will, one day.”

That was something, at least. They could work with that.

“I want you to trust me enough to share them.”

He opened his eyes. “I want that too.”

He looked desperate to tell her, but it was like something bigger than him wouldn’t allow him to do it. Rey slid onto her side, between his torso and his right arm, letting her hand sneak onto his chest. His heart was beating so fast that it was almost visible under his T-shirt, and soon she realized that it was beating in tandem with hers. This was the perfect moment to ask him about the Creature.

She licked her lips, her head spinning. “I… I need to know what you’re hiding in the dovecote. I know you lied to me.”

He frowned under her, his eyebrows scrunching. She took his hand, squeezing it. 

“We need to trust each other, right?”

Kylo nodded, eyelashes fluttering, and Rey’s mind traveled straight to Crimson Eyes’ lashes, so long and soft against his grey skin.

“I’m helping someone,” he blurted out, eyes open, sincere, baring his soul to her.

“Is there someone else then, in this house?”

He nodded. “Only during the night. He won’t hurt you, Rey.”

Rey was about to blurt out  _ “I know,” _ but she caught her tongue before she revealed too much and simply nodded, her teeth tormenting her lips. 

“Who is it?”

“A friend… of sorts. I don’t know how long he’ll need to stay here,” Kylo continued. “But I promise he won’t bother you.”

“Why is he hiding?”

“He… he hurt someone he cares about. I don’t know if it was an accident.”

Rey gulped. Was he talking about her? Her hand ran to the scar on her arm, mindlessly caressing it. The thought that the Creature felt so guilty because of that silly accident that he would to chain himself to a wall was heartbreaking–she needed to bring him out of the dovecote, no matter what the cost. 

“Thank you for telling me that,” she whispered. “That was a good first step.”

He nodded, carding a hand through his hair.

“When you’re ready to share more, I’ll be there. You’re not alone.”

Kylo gulped. “Neither are you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New art for chapter 8 by the lovely @Nssanssa2 on Twitter:


	17. Good Boys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously, on Crimson Eyes:
> 
> Kylo tells Rey he’s sorry for kissing her out of the blue.  
> Rey, spurred by her new knowledge, kisses him.  
> Kylo reveals that he’s helping Crimson Eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone give some love to my wonderful beta, [MissCoppelia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissCoppelia/pseuds/MissCoppelia)! Thank you so much! <3

Before doing anything more than kissing they needed to tend to the caterpillars. The morning passed in a whirlwind, with Rey feeling as if she was on a cloud: the guilt for having treated Kylo poorly during the past few weeks slowly withered, helped by his smiles and casual touches. He looked like another person too, eyes luminous and dimples proudly in sight. Knowing that he was actually helping Crimson Eyes had lifted one of the biggest weights suffocating her, and she knew he was telling the truth, this time–she didn’t know how, but she just knew. Now, she only had to convince Crimson Eyes that there was no need to chain himself up on her behalf. She trusted him to not hurt her anymore.

Kylo had prepared her spinach and cheese omelette for lunch–she tried to not think about _eggs_ too much–and they ate in the orchard, sitting on the lawn, like during their first week together. She looked at the woods surrounding them, wondering about the Creature. What was he doing? Was he safe, now? Was he thinking about her?

Kylo had been honest with her, sharing the first piece of a bigger, intricate puzzle–a puzzle she was impatient to visit every night–so maybe she should be honest with him as well, revealing how she knew there was someone hiding in the dovecote. She needed to wait for the right moment to tell him, and the sooner, the better.

“The cherries are ripe,” he announced after finishing his portion, getting on his feet to pick a handful of the deep red fruits, wiping them hastily with his T-shirt and offering them to Rey.

They were almost the same colour as the Creature’s eyes. She took a bite, and their sweet juice tinted her lips. Kylo Ren was on her then, enormous, knees on the grass and body folding to meet her mouth. She welcomed him, legs spread to accommodate the width of his hips, her lips parted to welcome his tongue. He kissed her like his–or her–life depended on it, a perfect balance between shyness and desire. She loved it. She loved _him._

A part of her wanted to hurry, tearing at their clothes and getting her way with him there, in the orchard, while another part of her wanted to wait, and take his hand, and kiss him instead of skipping steps as she’d always been used to. But he was touch starved, maybe even more than she’d been in her youth, and unfortunately she knew all too well how he was feeling. He ground against her cunt, stealing a hungry moan from her lips. She couldn’t wait anymore.

Kylo abandoned Rey’s mouth with a loud pop, his hands traveling down her collarbone, reaching her breasts. He blushed while kneading the small, soft mound, and the healthy colour on his cheeks made her heartbeat speed up. 

“What do you want?” she asked again.

He lowered his gaze, concentrating on his own hand. “I don’t know,” he murmured. “Everything.”

That quickly settled her dilemma. Grabbing his pointy chin, she pecked his lips again until he opened his mouth to welcome her tongue. 

“Let’s go upstairs, then,” she murmured against his lips.

“I don’t have condoms,” he blurted out, blushing again. “I mean, I don’t have much... experience, and I had a vasectomy a couple of years ago... we shouldn't have problems?"

Rey carded her fingers through his dark, silky hair. The fact that Kylo decided to have a vasectomy should have surprised her, but she wasn’t. It was strangely fitting with his brooding character.

“I have an IUD. But I’ve had sex recently. Unprotected.”

Kylo’s face almost fell. “I didn’t–I had no idea you were–”

“He’s not my boyfriend. More like a friend… of sorts,” she answered. “I have condoms in my room.”

He looked at her like she’d just confessed to him the most astounding fact, his pupils wide and his mouth hanging open.

“Why?” he whispered. “The condoms, I mean.”

“For you,” she confessed, shrugging. “I wanted to be ready for you.”

Kylo hid his face in her neck, the gesture now very familiar to her. “I–thank you, Rey.”

***

Kylo insisted on carrying her bridal-style all the way to her room, and Rey let him, giggling and enjoying his strong arms lifting her up. They ended on the bed, limbs entangled into the sheets, Crimson Eyes’s smell still lingering–or was it Kylo’s?–on those. Without much preamble, Rey removed her T-shirt and pants, almost, but not quite, naked.

Kylo gulped, his eyes roaming over all that uncovered skin. “Can I?”

Rey took both his hands, bringing them over her breasts. He kneaded the soft mounds as he’d done in the orchard, and his blush came back with a vengeance. 

“It’s okay,” she reassured him. “You’re doing great.”

Kylo removed his hands from Rey, hugging her tight and hiding his face in her neck. His hard cock was pulsing against her leg. She nuzzled his still-blushing ear, and found that he was trembling. His whole body was shaking now.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered.

“You would probably expect a man my age to be more experienced,” he sighed. “But I don’t know how to touch you without–without hurting you, or coming in two seconds like an idiot.”

“And?” she prodded him. “Nothing wrong with that. You need to start somewhere to become experienced.”

He nodded, his gaze downturned, and she extended a hand, fishing the packet of condoms from her drawer.

“Do you trust me? Get on your back, naked” she commanded, and he obeyed, removing his clothes. 

“Are we going to? Just like this?” he panted.

Rey nodded, eyes roaming over his form. He was pale all around: his skin was mottled with dark moles, and his muscles were covered by a nice, healthy layer of fat, making him look bigger than he actually was. When he got on his back, his cock bounced proudly in front of Rey’s eyes, and she quickly unwrapped the condom, unrolling it on his erection. He was shaking under her, eyes closed and fists scrunching her sheets; Rey lubed herself and straddled him, keeping his cock still, and slowly sank on him, letting gravity do all the work. 

She engulfed him–his cock was nice, and on the bigger side–glad she was still quite aroused from before, moaning while he bottomed inside her, stretching her delightfully. His eyes were still closed, but his lips were parted now, and he was panting under her, concentrated, trying to not come.

“Kylo?”

“Yes?” he moaned, helpless.

“You can come.”

“I–I don’t want to.”

“Shhh,” Rey soothed him, splaying her hands on his chest, fucking him slowly. “Be a good boy, come for me.”

She clenched her muscles around him, and Kylo came, his whole body spasming under hers. She kissed his parted lips as he trembled, his cock pulsing like mad inside her tight walls, and he finally moaned into her mouth, desperate, as her muscles squeezed mercilessly his pulsing shaft.

“I’m so sorry,” he whined.

“Nonsense,” Rey answered, smiling.

“I was–I was expecting this to go in a different way?”

She kissed his jaw. “We have time. All the time in the world.”

Kylo nodded, hugging her tight. 

***

They remained in Rey’s bed for the whole afternoon. Kylo quickly came to terms with the fact that Rey couldn’t care less about his inexperience, welcoming all his orgasms with almost childish glee. He helped her reach several orgasms of her own, with a curiosity and a generosity that she’d never encountered before in any guy she’d been with–save for Crimson Eyes, but the Creature wasn’t technically _any guy,_ nor he was human.

Kylo was enraptured by her body, her skin, her muscled backside, and her small breasts, running his warm hands all over her freckled, pale skin. Once he learned how to make her come, nothing could stop him. He seemed particularly enamoured with her nipples, her pussy, her clit, and with how sensitive the latter was under his explorations–with his fingers, his tongue, and the head of his penis covered by the rubbery and slick condoms. 

He also never commented on Rey’s grooming, or lack thereof. He nosed at her coarse groin as he made her come with his tongue, and caressed the dark, sparse hair growing on her shins once they simply laid there, sated between the rumpled sheets, like she used to caress the Creature’s silky hair and peachy skin after their nightly trysts. Rey’s mind couldn’t help running to the dovecote, and her friend… of sorts. She deeply enjoyed having sex with him in all his wild glory, just as she’d enjoyed having sex with Kylo, in all his shy humanity. 

Crimson Eyes was –literally– a different beast altogether, but he had many things in common with Kylo she wouldn’t have been able to choose between the two, on the cusp of a dilemma. She felt torn apart. Kylo had still no idea that she had visited his guest every night so far–the expression on his face when she revealed she’d had sex recently had been enough to make her understand that knowing what she was doing could seriously break his heart, way more than the prospect of her having a friend with benefits in town.

“It’s almost dinner time,” he whispered, interrupting her thoughts, wet kisses running along her spine.

She shivered. “Is there time for another round?”

“Of course,” he said, snapping his lips. “Then I’ll cook you a steak. With potatoes.”

Rey laughed. He was so silly, she loved him so much. But her laugh soon died, replaced by a moan: he’d found her clit and his already slick fingers were circling it slowly, spurts of electricity running through her spine. He was a very quick learner. 

She fished another condom out of the drawer, and threw it at him, turning on all fours. She could hear his breath hitch at the sight of her exposed ass, but he soon caressed her wet lips with the tip of his cock, spreading her moisture and finally entering her. 

The pleasure he gave her was coupled by a subtle, burning ache that against all odds was making her even more hungry. Once they finished, she pleaded with him to pass the night with her, to no avail. Unmovable about his sleeping routine, he wished her good night right after dinner as usual, leaving her, once again, alone.


	18. Selfish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously, on Crimson Eyes:
> 
> Rey and Kylo have sex.  
> He’s inexperienced but eager to learn.  
> Rey can’t help comparing him to Crimson Eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the comments and the support <3 The journey is almost finished and I'm emotional <3

It was already dark when Rey sneaked out of her bedroom to reach the dovecote–no mask this time. After her call with Rose, during which she hadn’t revealed what had happened with Kylo, Rey had carefully pondered how to proceed. She never had two lovers at the same time. Was even Kylo her boyfriend now? Her partner? She wasn’t sure she could refer to him as that, but she knew he loved her, and she felt the same. She wasn’t sure that what she felt for Crimson Eyes could even be called love, and it was clear that her relationship with the Creature couldn’t be placed on the same level as her relationship with Kylo. But she still wanted him with all her being. She was left feeling lost, with no idea how to proceed 

Rey had three options now. She could tell Kylo the truth, especially since she’d asked him to be honest with her from now on. But telling the truth would also mean wounding him: knowing about her tryst with the Creature would break his heart, and shatter his trust in her. Another option was ending her encounters with Crimson Eyes altogether–but explaining that to him would be impossible, since he wasn’t even able to speak–thus breaking his heart as well. The easiest option would be continuing like nothing had happened, unless the Creature finally returned to his woods, or Kylo decided that he would try to pass his nights with her, insomnia be damned. 

Crimson Eyes became agitated upon her entering the dovecote. She still smelled of sex, having taken only a quick shower before dinner, just to wash away her and Kylo’s fluids from between her legs. She quickly distracted him with his honey solution while deciding to try something new: he was already hard, and she sat in front of him, caressing his ovipositor. It wasn’t enormous–its size was similar to Kylo’s, huge but not intimidating–but the shape and the colour were definitely alien, but enticing nonetheless. Touching it delicately, she explored its head: it bore a meaty, cross-shaped opening on its top–that was where his eggs came from. 

The Creature jolted as soon as Rey tickled the gash with a finger, his now empty bottle falling on the mattress, as he moaned in surprise. His opening was moister than her cunt, and she easily penetrated him with her forefinger, making him tremble and chirp under her ministrations.

“Do you like this?” she asked, amazed at how much fluid he could produce from his cock, the clear substance slowly coating her skin.

He started purring, eyes closed and a thin thread of drool already forming on his chin. Rey smiled, and started to fuck his cock slowly, adding her middle finger as well. Her skin was now pruned, and juices were flowing freely from the cleft.

“You’re loving this,” she murmured, increasing her speed.

Crimson Eyes’ whole body twitched for several seconds. Rey removed her fingers from his cock as he opened his eyes, and he tackled her on the mattress so quickly that she didn’t even have the time to protest. She found herself on her back, his face buried between her legs instead of the crook of her neck, sniffing at her coarse hair, his nose on her clit already making her head spin.

“I had sex today,” she told him, bringing her still soaked fingertips against her lips.

They smelled like him. He purred, nosing at her groin again. Was he sensing Kylo’s smell? Or the smell of the condoms they’d used? She wasn’t sure. In any case, Crimson Eyes didn’t seem to be too worried, since he soon began lapping at her folds with his tongue, coating her with his nice, thick saliva, making her crazy with need and heady with pheromones.

Rey’s cunt was still aching from that afternoon: Kylo had fucked her several times in the end–they would need to buy more condoms soon–and the Creature’s probing tongue only showed her how tender she still was. Still, she didn’t protest when Crimson Eyes turned on her stomach to bite at her neck and penetrate her cunt with a single, swift thrust, moaning weakly under his weight, taking everything he had to give her. 

Could she really give up this? Could she really abandon how good this wondrous being made her feel? Would it be too selfish to have Kylo by day and the Creature by night? A flash of both of them fucking her at the same time filled her brain, and a single digit pushed against her clit was enough to send her over the cliff. Her walls spasmed under Crimson Eyes’ erratic thrusts, milking his cock, his fluids making her even more drenched.

He turned her around, folding her body in two, knees pushed against her ribcage, penetrating her again with a quick thrust. As he slid in, she closed her legs around his hips, mindful of his wings, as her hands sought purchase in the soft fur surrounding his neck. She inhaled his heady smell deeply, burying her nose in his fur. He was warm, and he smelled incredible. He smelled like home.

Fucking her harder, he began kissing the spot right under her ear, soft skin tickled by dark lips. As he pushed into her, shivers wrecked her limbs, and his mouth traveled towards the sharp, square angle of her jaw until it met her bottom lip, biting it lightly with his pointy teeth. Rey pushed her tongue between his lips, making him purr in surprise. He answered the kiss hungrily, his long, black tongue exploring every nook and corner of her mouth, making her cunt gush around his length.

Rey felt his knot take form at the base of his cock then, but right when he was about to push into her one last time, letting her walls engulf the now familiar swelling, she unhooked her legs from around his hips to give him better access, but his length slid out of her, instead. 

“Shit,” she moaned, lamenting the loss.

Crimson Eyes emitted the usual, sombre sound of disappointment, seeing that his knot was already forming without anything around it to keep it at bay. Was it painful? They needed to get his cock back inside her, quickly. Rey tried to sit on the mattress but he began humping her thigh, helpless, trying to penetrate her again. She stopped him with a hand around his throat.

“Get on your back,” she exclaimed as he purred, a bit puzzled by her request. “Quick! We don’t have much time!”

Rey pushed at his chest until his back touched the soaked mattress, hoping that his wings could bear this new position. His knot was getting fatter and fatter under her gaze, so they had no time to waste or it would be impossible to let him lay his egg inside of her. She wanted to fuck him like she’d fucked Kylo that afternoon, riding him until he came unbridled, cock pulsing inside her walls, making her shiver in pleasure. 

Straddling the Creature’s hips, she slowly lowered herself on his erection, heart thundering in her ribcage. But instead of taking him in her cunt again, she decided to breach her ass with the tip of his cock, to let him lay the egg where it was most comfortable for both of them. She didn’t want to hurry, but she had to since his knot was swelling in front of her eyes. Luckily, gravity and the fluids dripping from his erection helped her: her hole fluttered against the intrusion, hungrily engulfing the tip of the ovipositor, making her whole body shiver. Would Kylo eventually fuck her ass as deliciously as Crimson Eyes did?

Slowly, she managed to slide on his cock, as they both panted for the exertion, the Creature looking at her in awe and her poor heart almost threatening to escape her ribcage. This was her first time topping him, and the sensation was making her heady. The new position was so intense that her whole body erupted in goosebumps, and she soon reached the knot, now quite swollen and bumping against her buttocks. 

Down on the mattress, Crimson Eyes was looking at her in awe, his mouth hanging open. Now more than ever Rey wished that he could talk to her, that they could communicate with their voices and not only with their bodies, that they could pass their time in ways other than fucking like beasts on a soaked mattress in an abandoned dovecote. But he was a wild creature and, selfishly, she was already taking everything she could from him. 

Slowly, her fingers working steadily on her clit, she let herself push against his knot, her muscles stretching around the bulge until it was almost too much to bear. She pushed, fingers working faster on her nub. He started purring loudly as her ass squeezed his knot and he actually moaned when she finally managed to get through the largest part, engulfing the rest quickly and finding herself sitting on his drenched lap, her heart exploding. As she pulsed around him, he brought his hands on her body, caressing her sweaty skin, pinching her nipples until they became stiff, looking for her empty cunt to play with as she was taking his egg deep inside of her.

Rey came like this, impaled on the Creature’s cock, four fingers in her cunt, a thumb on her clit, and his eyes burning holes into her soul. He came as well, filling her depths with his egg: with no energy left, she let him cradle her in his arms. She fell asleep with her head on his chest, nose tickled by his silky, black hair, and one of his big, warm hands petting her hair sweetly.

Luckily, she came to her senses right before dawn. The sky was still dark, but the air was permeated by the particular smell left by a dying night, of moist earth and summer mist, a prelude to a sunny, warm day. She checked the time on her phone, extending a hand towards her backpack as Crimson Eyes woke up as well, trying to squeeze her between his arms, as if he didn’t want her to go. His mournful expression broke her heart.

“I’m sorry, but I have to return to my room,” she whispered, kissing him. “Kylo Ren will be up soon, and I still need to wash, and–” she gestured vaguely with her hand in front of her belly.

The Creature answered with the usual dull sound, his antennae folding along his skull.

“I’ll miss you too,” Rey said against his lips. 

She sat on the mattress, donning her clothes again–luckily all the sticky fluid had dried as they slept–but when she got up, she noticed a dark stain on the sheet: blood.

“Fuck,” she whispered, fishing her phone again: her period was due in a couple of days, but it looked like it came earlier, just to mess with her.

She took a tissue from her backpack and started to dab at the sheet. Crimson Eyes looked at her, puzzled, his nostrils catching the faint scent of iron coming from the mattress, and from her crotch.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I hope Kylo won’t get angry. I’ve stained his sheet.”

The Creature hugged her tight, caressing her abdomen and purring loudly, as if he knew she was in pain.

“I’ll miss you,” Rey whispered, eyes shining with unshed tears. “I’ll miss you so much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @CappnMallory on Twitter made some beautiful fanarts!
> 
> And also [this one](https://twitter.com/CappnMallory/status/1319477463563620360?s=20) and [this other one](https://twitter.com/CappnMallory/status/1316224570270142464?s=20) that I can’t post on Tumblr because they’re extremely juicy and NSFW <3


	19. Connecting the Dots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously, on Crimson Eyes:
> 
> Rey doesn’t really want to choose between Kylo and Crimson Eyes.  
> She returns to the dovecote despite having had sex for the whole afternoon.  
> Her period came early and she stained the sheets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end of our journey <3 I'm overwhelmed!

At breakfast, Kylo was as pale as a sheet. Rey joined him in the kitchen, noticing straight away how he was preparing food mechanically. His gaze was vacuous, and he barely answered the peck she gave him on his cheek. 

“Are you okay?” she asked, once seated at the table. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

He didn't answer, spearing a sausage with his fork, but not eating it. “Where were you tonight?” he blurted out. 

“What?” she exclaimed, her head spinning.

Somehow, he knew. Was that because of the blood?

“I was in my room.”

He pushed his plate away, pinching his nose. “You asked me to be honest with you, just yesterday. I’m asking the same thing of you, now.”

Rey almost felt herself faint, and she pushed her plate away, closing her eyes and squeezing her fists until her knuckles became white.

“Rey,” he sighed. “You know what I’m about to tell you. You can’t stay here anymore. Prepare your things and leave before dusk. You’ll be paid for the whole week, of course, but you can’t remain here.”

 _There._

Rey’s head started spinning, and she felt herself choke under the weight of his decision. Her face burning, she was glad she was sitting, or her knees wouldn’t support her weight.

“I’m not injured,” she gulped. “He didn’t wound me, _this time.”_

Kylo sighed, pinching his nose again. “You’ve seen _him,_ then?”

“And the first time it happened, it was an accident!” she continued, her cheeks red, her voice growing desperate. “He found me after I fell, and he tried to help me, but I got scared and I moved too quickly. That’s how I got the scar.”

“How did you get into the dovecote?”

She lowered her gaze. “I made a copy of your key. When you sent me away.”

If looks could kill, Rey would have been ash in a few seconds. Kylo was seething, but he hadn’t raised his voice, yet.

“And the blood? If you’re not injured, where did it come from?”

“I fell asleep and then my period came. It happens,” she shrugged. “Do you want to check?”

Kylo looked like he was about to punch the table, but he simply clenched his fists until his knuckles became white. “You fell asleep?”

“I fell asleep,” Rey nodded. “You asked me to be honest with you.”

“You,” he gulped, “sleeping in the dovecote, with a _monster._ Since when has this thing been going on? When did you start lying to me?”

“Since the first day I came here,” she blurted out, tears now running down her cheeks. “I saw him on the roof, and then I met him in the woods a couple of times. Then I started visiting him after you sent me away. He would never hurt me, and you know it!”

Kylo got on his feet, his chair scraping the floor and falling down. “Yesterday you asked me who _I_ was hiding in the dovecote, and I even answered you!” he shouted, spit flying towards her. “You knew for the whole time, and you never–you _never_ told me, not even once!”

“I was afraid you would hurt him,” she sobbed. “He’s the purest creature I’ve ever met Kylo, I just want him to be free, and to be happy.”

“He’s a fucking murderer!” He shouted even louder, his face now almost purple, tears filling his eyes too.

“Why are you saying this?” she shouted back.

“He mauled a man twelve years ago!”

Rey stopped crying. “Professor Snoke,” she whispered, aghast.

“I see you have done your homework.”

“Then it’s true? Was he protec–”

“This ends here, Rey. I’m going in the orchard now, and when I’ll finish feeding the caterpillars, I need you to be gone.”

“Kylo, seriously, I–”

“I’m doing this for you,” he whispered, calm, his gaze ice, his cheeks bearing the trails of his tears. 

Somehow, he was even scarier than before, when he was shouting at her. This calmer, icy version of Kylo was something she never met until now, and it unsettled her.

“I want to remain here, with you.”

“You won’t, Rey. Not until I’ll find a solution to this problem. A permanent one. Go prepare your things.”

Rey got to her feet, making her chair fall, and despite feeling queasy, she managed to run to her bedroom. Throwing herself on the bed, she cried all the tears she had in her body, punching the mattress, kicking at the cushions.

“This isn’t fair,” she coughed, “this isn’t fair!”

Rey kept weeping as she threw, for the second time, all her meager belongings in her bag–but this time, the framed picture of her friends finished in there as well. She messaged Rose quickly, then she ran downstairs, into the kitchen, hellbent on stealing all the food she could bring with her. 

Their plates from breakfast were still on the table, ignored, next to an envelope filled with her pay for the week. She pocketed it, and she transferred the content of the plates in an empty lunch box she found in the pantry. Looking at the hard-boiled eggs bounce into the plastic container, a deep, sad resolution filled her heart. She would return that evening, once Kylo was asleep, to see Crimson Eyes for the last time and tell him that she was sorry, that she didn’t want to abandon him.

Opening the fridge, she found the Italian ham Leia had brought, and she took cans of organic beans and sauces from the pantry too. Her luggage was about to explode, and she had to sit on it to properly zip it up. Kylo came back from the orchard in that exact moment, but he didn’t linger on the fact that she was still there, or that she was sitting on a trolley in the middle of the kitchen: the right side of his face was covered in blood, his eye shut closed and the neck of his T-shirt soaked.

Rey’s breath hitched. “Kylo…” she murmured, petrified, all the horrible things he’d said to her already forgotten.

He looked at her, his still open eye guilty. Removing his T-shirt, he pressed it against his face: the blood came from an ugly gash bisecting his right cheek, from forehead to jaw. His right eye was closed and swollen, and she felt her guts twist at the sight.

Rey approached him, trembling, a hand lifted and eyes full of tears again.

“How?” she whispered, looking at the white fabric quickly turning red.

“The billhook. It got stuck in a branch, I pulled too quickly.”

“We need to call an ambulance,” Rey exclaimed, fretting around him, her eyes avoiding his face.

“No,” he stated, deadpan. “It’s better than it looks, I just need to clean the blood and apply stitches.”

“I’ll help you,” she gulped.

They ended up in the downstairs bathroom, sitting on the floor. Kylo’s T-shirt was soaked through, but his wound was already looking better, its edges clean. Rey, too shaky to properly help him, was holding a magnifying mirror as he methodically applied surgical stitches to the wound, the black thread punching holes in his pale, freckled skin, bringing the edges of the gash together. He proceeded with calm, as if he was used to sewing himself up, and after twelve evenly-spaced stitches between his cheek and his eyebrow, he was almost as good as new.

Rey had a lump in her throat. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice so small that it was almost inaudible. “This happened because of me.”

“No!” Kylo barked, becoming sombre all of a sudden. “It's my fault. I exploded earlier, and I was still angry while I was pruning the trees. It’s not your fault and it’ll never be.”

Rey started crying again, and he hugged her tight, uncaring of his state. She hugged back, burying her face in his neck, careful to not touch his wound, and wept. She wept for his wound, she wept for herself, she wept for Crimson Eyes, oblivious of how stupid and petty humans could be.

“I didn’t want to lie to you, I was just afraid, and confused, and angry. But my feelings for you are real.”

He nodded, trembling.

“I’ll go now,” she said, hoping that he would stop her and kiss her, and tell her that everything was going to be okay.

But he didn’t. “That’s the best choice.”

“Is there… even the slightest possibility for me to come back? You said–you said you loved me.”

“It’s the truth. I do love you.” Kylo sighed. “That’s why I don’t think you’ll be safe here. I can’t get rid of _him._ He’ll always be with me.”

“That doesn’t matter! If you’d only listen–”

“Go, Rey. Just go.”

***

Rey took her bag and ran away before Kylo could notice she never gave him back her bundle of keys. She drove like mad down the highway, and she ran up the stairs bringing her to Rose’s apartment. None of her friends were home at that time of the day, so she threw herself onto the old sofa, crying herself to sleep.

Rose found her in the same position after a couple of hours, hugged her tightly, and let her cry again between her arms.

“It looks like I’ve lost my job,” she smiled sadly.

“I’m so, so sorry, Rey. What happened?”

“If I told you, you won’t believe it,” Rey sniffed, trying to open a used handkerchief she found in her pocket. “You know, we had sex in the end, the other day.

Rose faltered, her hands grabbing Rey’s shoulders. “Then why? Why did he fire you?”

“It’s a long story. Do you promise you will not treat me like a crazy woman, if I’ll tell you everything?”

She nodded. 

“Have you ever heard of Ben Solo?”

“The name isn’t new. Wasn’t he a kid that disappeared, years ago?”

Rey told Rose everything, and even showed her the scar that Crimson Eyes had given her in the woods. Ashamed, she omitted the part where she got drunk on his pheromones and he seized the moment to mate with her, as well as the part where she came back for more after only a day, getting addicted to his smell, his beautiful red eyes, and his cock. Even without knowing the full picture, Rose was, predictably, shocked.

“What. The. Fuck.” she commented, mouth gaping open and eyes as wide as saucers. “If I found what you just told me on some random Facebook posts, I would think that’s some X-Files bullshit, Rey.”

“I know it’s absurd. But I saw this Creature almost every day. He’s real.”

“I can hardly believe it–I mean, l can believe it only because I know you and you’re not someone that likes to invent stuff, but this is… unbelievable.”

Rey simply hugged Rose tight, too overwhelmed to thank her properly.

“I’m going back tonight, to see him one last time,” she confessed. “I need to make sure he’s okay. That he'll be okay without me.”

“Oh,” Rose whispered. “This is so _you_ that it almost hurts.”

They both laughed, but Rose became serious. “Will you try to free him again? What if he doesn’t want to?”

“He doesn’t need to keep himself chained up if I’m not around, and I’ll leave him alone then. But I need to see him again. For my peace of mind.”

Rose nodded. “Do you want me to come with you? I can wait for you in the car.”

“This is something I need to do alone,” Rey sighed. “Then again, technically it’s burglary.”

***

Kaydel and Jannah were thrilled to have Rey back. She told them that she had a couple of days off instead of explaining what had truly happened, and after eating something quick with them–Kylo’s fancy food–she hopped into her car and started driving towards her ex-employer’s house. It was a moonless night, and the sky was cloudy, the lamps on the highway the only source of light in the darkness.

Her heart threatened to burst out of her ribcage when she took the familiar gravel road flanked by cornfields–the cobs were almost mature now–but she couldn’t feel Crimson Eyes’ presence amongst the trees. This could only mean that he was still in the house, and she opened the main gates with trembling hands. It wasn’t particularly late, but there were no lights on, and Kylo was surely already asleep.

She ran straight to the dovecote. The door was bolted, but when she opened it, seeing that the room was empty, she burst out into tears–if those were tears of sadness or relief, she couldn’t say. The mattress was bare, no sheet in sight, but she threw herself on it nonetheless, finding that it still smelled of Crimson Eyes, and a bit of her too. The thought made her stomach churn. She missed him, and she missed Kylo as well, despite his countless attempts to turn himself into a jerk. Confused more than ever, she cried herself to sleep.

Rey dreamed. This time, her visions weren’t as convoluted as usual: she simply saw herself in a silk cocoon, sleeping, protected by strong hands in the darkness. Whether they were Kylo’s or Crimson Eyes’, she couldn’t tell. Touching them, they were big, and soft, and warm, and they made her feel safe, so she squeezed them against her heart. 

When a strong arm slithered around her waist from behind, she woke up, a familiar, soothing smell filling her nostrils. She entwined her fingers with the Creature’s, caressing the velvet back of his hand as he began purring against the nape of her neck, stealing a smile from her.

“I thought I’d find you here, chained, but you weren’t,” she smiled, kissing his palm. “And then you came back for me.”

She turned between his arms. His red eyes were barely visible in the darkness of the dovecote, and he brought her fingers to his lips, touching them. He kissed her fingertips, and she caressed the bridge of his prominent nose. He made a new sound, a sound that seemed full of longing to her ears, spurring her to kiss his lips.

“I’ve missed you too,” she whispered against his mouth. “And we’ll need to say goodbye before dawn. Kylo thinks it’s dangerous for me to stay here. I’m returning to town, to my friends.”

Crimson Eyes protested, but Rey put a finger on his lips. “I’ve tried to convince him, believe me, but he’s afraid. Of what, I have no idea.” She kissed him, her thumb stroking his pointy chin. “I know you’re not evil. I know you did what you had to do to protect him. You killed Snoke for him.”

Rey stroked his left cheek, his hair, his neck before touching his lips with hers again. Her left hand traveled slowly across his chest, finally landing on his right cheek, finding something hard and spiky poking out of his skin. She pulled it back quickly, as if she’d been electrocuted.

“What?” she whispered, astonished. 

He took her hand in his bigger one, guiding her fingers against his face, against something that felt like hard spikes prodding out of his skin. There were several of those, right in the middle of his cheek, following a line. All she could think of were surgical stitches, and her thoughts whirled back to that morning, to Kylo Ren sewing his face on the bathroom floor, right in front of her. Rey felt dizzy, scrambling back from Crimson Eyes, rummaging to pick her phone from her backpack. He protested her absence, sitting on the mattress, emitting the dull, sombre sound.

She quickly turned the flashlight app on, illuminating his surprised face, making him squint his red, red eyes; what she saw almost made her faint: there was a long, already healed scar bisecting his right cheek and eyebrow, perfectly matching Kylo’s. Everything clicked. Every clue had been right in front of her. She’d never felt more stupid in her life. 

“You–you’re–oh my God,” she moaned, as he lazily lapped at his wound, his black tongue slithering across his face like a snake. 

“I feel so, so stupid,” she wailed, and he ran to her, to see if she was unwell.

Rey hugged him again, burying her nose in the silky fur covering his neck, and he rocked her gently between his arms until she stopped crying. There was no need to hide anymore now, and calmer, they both fell asleep, their limbs entwined. 

They remained like that until dawn, until the pale light of the sun began to filter through the small openings of the dovecote, waking them up. Crimson Eyes–or Kylo?–rolled away from her, positioning himself in a corner of the mattress, his supine body slowly freezing.

Rey looked at him, her heart beating faster: if he and Kylo were the same person, there was some kind of metamorphosis involved, and it was going to happen in front of her eyes. He looked at her one last time, and then kept still on the mattress, straight as an arrow. Soon, he closed his eyes as his most prominent features began slowly receding into his body. Like a reverse timelapse of a moth leaving its chrysalis, his wings shriveled back into his shoulders, his dark, silky hair left the place to smooth, pale skin, and his antennae retreated into his head.

The metamorphosis left a naked Kylo Ren in front of a speechless Rey. Careful, she approached him–he was breathing slowly, peacefully–caressing the tip of his nose. He opened his eyes, startled, surprise etched on his angular features.

“Rey,” he whispered, surprise giving way to something she couldn’t name, maybe shame, or pain.

Rey took his hand, caressing it, kissing it sweetly as tears fell from her eyes.

“Why are you here? He croaked, his voice broken.

“To say goodbye to the Creature,” she answered. 

Silence echoed in the room for what felt like forever.

“I didn’t–I didn’t want you to find out like this. I wanted to tell you,” he murmured. “I didn't want to scare you away.”

“Well, I wasn’t scared in the slightest, but you sent me away nonetheless. Without telling me anything.”

Kylo averted his gaze, chastised.

“You can’t remember anything that happens at night, can you?” Rey prodded.

He shook his head, blinking: his eyes were full of tears too, and he took her hand in his, squeezing it. 

“You’re not disgusted?” he asked, his voice small.

“Of course not!” she exclaimed. “How could I be?” 

He sighed deeply, his chest moving, and let his tears fall.

“I’m so sorry Rey. could you ever forgive me?”

She nodded, hugging him tightly. “I already forgave you, even if you don’t deserve it. But Crimson Eyes does.”

Kylo nodded, squeezing her against him, as if he wanted their bodies to fuse together. They remained like that for what felt hours. There were so many things they needed to say to each other now, without fear, without hiding anymore. Her tears wet his shoulders, and his hands ran across Rey’s back, soothing her.

“I am…” he said, trembling. “Relieved that you came back. I didn’t know how to tell you. I was so, so afraid Rey, You have no idea.”

“You were ready to send me away instead of talking to me like the adult you are,” she laughed sadly. “Being a stubborn busybody served me well, in the end.”

“I’m a coward,” he said, drying his tears with the back of his hands.

Rey squeezed him playfully. “You’ll tell me everything, now?”

He nodded. “Yes. I don’t want to be scared anymore.”

She kissed him. “Let’s remove those stitches. Then I want a full breakfast; we’ll talk after that.”

Kylo got on his feet, extending a hand towards Rey. “How do you feel about eggs?”

She laughed, kissing him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The epilogue will be posted next week.  
> After that, I'll begin posting my RFFA story, [The Gift Of The River](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26697778). Check it if you like Medieval AUs!


	20. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously, on Crimson Eyes:
> 
> Thinking that Crimson Eyes had wounded Rey again, Kylo fires her for her own safety.  
> Shaken by his own decision, he has an accident with the billhook, cutting his face open.  
> Rey is stubborn and she comes back to see Crimson Eyes for the last time.  
> Surprise: Crimson Eyes has a wound on his face, identical to Kylo’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My neverending love and gratitude go to [MissCoppelia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissCoppelia/pseuds/MissCoppelia), awesome beta reader and awesome friend, that made this whole story possible. I hope that this little epilogue will answer all the questions you asked me in the comments! Will I return to this story? Maybe (thinking about a long oneshot about Ben's recovery), but not too soon <3\. Thank you again for all the support you showed me <3

Rey fidgeted with the hem of her knitted jumper as she waited for Mrs. Organa to arrive. Ben and her had decided to invite his mother for lunch to finally talk to her about their relationship, but she’d been delayed by some unexpected emergency at the Senate, and now it was already dark. They had decided to let her stay the night then, even if Rey would have had to face her alone: she was worried–she had no idea about how mothers worked–and she’d already chewed on all her cuticles and nails. Now it was her jumper’s turn to suffer.

She approached the window, noticing Ben flying over the nearby woods–he loved to feel the crisp autumn currents against his wings–and sighed. Winter was approaching, and she still wasn’t used at how cold the countryside was. She prepared the fireplace, stacking crumpled newspapers and kindlings under a bigger log. In a few minutes, the seldom-used living room transformed into a cozy, enjoyable place. She sat on the sofa in front of the fire and waited, as the frame that held Little Guy looked down on her, next to the picture of her and her friends.

Leia wasn’t long in coming luckily, and Rey’s poor jumper could finally breathe. After preparing a herbal tea–a nice present from the nearby farmers–Rey accompanied the woman upstairs, and invited her to sit with her in front of the fireplace. Stealing a glance at Little Guy, she took a deep breath, her heart beating furiously.

“Ben will join us later.”

“Is he going by Ben again now?” Mrs. Organa asked, an eyebrow raised.

Rey nodded. He’d asked her to call him with his real name right after she’d witnessed his metamorphosis, before finally revealing what had happened to him so many years ago, at First Order Pharmaceutics. His name sounded strange coming out of her lips at the beginning, but she quickly got used to it. 

“I–Ben and I are in a relationship,” she finally blurted out.

Leia opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her expression was unreadable.

“Yes, I’m aware he transforms into a giant moth by night,” Rey added quickly, her heart almost beating out of her chest.

Leia got up from her armchair and, without uttering a word, sat beside her on the sofa, hugging her tight. Rey slowly answered, squeezing Leia’s minute shoulders. They were shaking.

“I’m sorry,” Rey said. “I’m so sorry.”

Leia took a few minutes to compose herself, drying her tears with a handkerchief. “I thought–I was afraid he would never have the chance to have a normal life. Having friends, finding a partner, being happy,” she confessed. “He’s missed so many things already, and I can’t help thinking it’s my fault.”

“It’s not,” Rey stated, a lump in her throat. “No one could have prevented his kidnapping. Snoke had been grooming him for years.”

Ben had explained everything to her. Listening to the whole story hadn’t been easy: what had happened to him at the hands of his professor was appalling, and Rey was glad Ben had found the strength to kill him, years later. That man was a heartless monster and a predator, and thinking about what he’d done to an innocent child made her shake with rage.

“If I’d been more present… if my husband had been more present, he wouldn’t have felt the need to become close with that man.”

Rey shook her head. “Snoke exploited Ben’s shyness and his interest in entomology. He successfully drove him away from his classmates and friends, making him think they were jealous, that they hated him. That’s how they became close. It’s not your fault.”

“Did he tell you–did he tell you what happened while he was–”

“He can’t really remember,” Rey answered, lying. 

Ben had told her how he’d been tortured while he was a guest of First Order Pharmaceutics, but there was no need to share those painful details with his mother. He’d been immobilized, knocked out unconscious with several cocktails of drugs, injected with who knows what, and in the end he spent several weeks trapped in a cocoon, in a sort of vigilant coma, his body unable to move. But their experiment on him had succeeded all too well, and once outside of his cocoon, he’d managed to escape after destroying the whole laboratory, returning to his mother despite the state he was in.

Luckily, Han wasn’t home that night. Leia was shocked to see him at the beginning, but she’d quickly realized he was still her son, overcoming her revulsion towards insects in a handful of seconds, hugging him tight and telling him she loved him, no matter what. They soon moved to another city, a city without painful memories for both of them, leaving his father behind.

“Maybe that’s for the better,” Leia said. 

“Do you know why they kidnapped him?”

“I have my theories, but I never shared anything with him,” Leia said, and she quickly uncovered her forearm, showing Rey several scars similar to hers. “He became quite feral after… What he did to Snoke. He fled to the woods for weeks after that episode, as if he was scared of himself. I went to look for him every night, and when I was finally able to approach him I brought him here. He was in bad condition. One night he tried to scare me away, and his nails were so long that he scratched my skin in several places. But then he came to himself, and he licked my wound closed. I think that Snoke tried to create a hybrid big enough to extract huge quantities of the particular acid his mouth is able to produce. They needed Ben to create a regenerating drug of some kind.”

Rey showed Leia her own scar. “This was an accident. I tripped in the woods, and he tried to lift me, but I moved too quickly. He chained himself up in the dovecote after that day. I tried to reassure him that it had been only an accident, but he never listened to me. I still wish he could speak, sometimes. ”

“He could once, you know?”

“Really? He–he doesn’t now. But he understands me and I understand the sounds he makes–more or less, so we can communicate a bit.” She blushed. 

Mrs. Organa nodded. “He learned to speak again a few months after he came home, when he was little. It wasn’t easy for him, but he was already a stubborn young man. He spoke until he killed Snoke.”

“He wasn’t doing well when I first came here. He was too scared to tell me about his abilities, and he tried to hide everything. Luckily, his moth counterpart was too curious to stay away for long, and here we are. Working together, living together,” Rey confessed. “He convinced me to go to University. I’m becoming an entomologist too.”

Leia took Rey’s hand between hers, but Ben tapped on the glass of the window right at that moment, and Rey had to get on her feet to let him inside. As Ben folded himself to fit the frame of the window, his gaze fell on his mother, and he stopped, almost surprised to see her. He still had difficulties remembering what happened during the day while he was a moth, and what happened during the night while he returned human, but they were working on that–with videos mainly–so probably he didn’t remember that his mother was meant to join them for the weekend.

“Ben,” his mother called him, smiling sadly. “It’s good to see you.”

“Come in,” Rey said. “You’re not a cat, even if you purr.”

Ben entered the room, his gaze glued on Mrs. Organa. She got up from the couch, extending her hand towards her son, and Rey slowly walked away, feeling that they both needed a moment alone. When she closed the door, she took one last look at the living room: Ben was kneeling on the floor, his face resting on his mother’s knees, and she was caressing his head. She closed the door and headed towards Ben’s room: she definitely needed a bubble bath.

***

When Ben joined her in his old bed it was late, and Rey had already slept for a couple of hours. She felt him slide between the sheets, hugging her from behind, his wings awkwardly folded under the weight of the blankets. His hands were warm against her skin, and she entwined her fingers with his. He shifted closer, flapping his wings under the blanket and making her shiver. They definitely needed a bigger bed. 

“Hey,” she said groggily, turning between his arms. “I hope things went well with Leia.”

Ben nodded, emanating a low purr from his throat. They’d started taking notes and videos on how Ben behaved while he was in moth form, to better study his body and how it worked, but the purring was still without any logical explanation. He purred often: while he was flying, while he was eating, while he was fucking, while Rey was brushing his fur. Overall, he purred every time he was around Rey. Once he even purred while he was wounded–he got in a fight with a barn owl, getting scratched by the bird’s talons–so they simply assumed that it actually worked like a cat’s purr. It was Rey’s favourite sound, and she couldn’t fall asleep anymore without Ben’s purr.

“Good Boy,” Rey praised him, caressing his antennae. “Did she like how we arranged her room?” 

He nodded again, kissing her cheek. Receiving his affection unprompted always made Rey melt, so she buried her nose in his neck, sighing. He carded his fingers through her hair then, scratching delicately her scalp until she closed her eyes, dozing off. That’s how she’d fallen asleep every single night since that fateful summer day, when she’d disobeyed him, coming back to say goodbye to Crimson Eyes one last time. 

The beginning of their relationship had been tainted by lies, secretiveness, and miscommunication, but they were happy now, in their strange little world made of cocoons, caterpillars, and little flying creatures.

“Thank you,” he whispered to her, his voice rusty and trembling.

Rey smiled in her sleep, already dreaming of their future together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Friday I'll begin publishing my RFFA fic, [The Gift Of The River](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26697778), set in Italy during the Gothic Wars. Give it a go if you like Medieval AUs!

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I know nothing about breeding moths, I just like them and I watch a lot of videos about them. What Kylo does with moths in this story is purely fictional, don’t try anything at home before consulting an expert, please <3
> 
> You can find me on Twitter @persimonne666
> 
> Russian translation by Smalta available [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27723107/chapters/67853960).


End file.
